Butterfly Biology Systems (eBook)

This book is an intellectual tour de force. Roger Dennis writes with fluent enthusiasm and deals confidently with complex
concepts providing a thorough glossary of technical terms and concepts to steer the reader through areas where unfamiliarity with specialist jargon could be a barrier to understanding and to counter 'familiarity fallacy syndrome'. A most thought-provoking book that is as intellectually challenging as it is stimulating, and I recommend it highly to all butterfly scientists and those working more widely in biology and ecology.

This book represents a truly daring attempt to organize a butterfly literature that has grown beyond all bounds and that fragments and anastomoses simultaneously even as we watch. This is an expensive limited-edition book. But if you fancy yourself a butterfly biologist, you need it. It provides road maps (flow charts are very like road maps!) to attacking the many problems that Dennis' and my generation are bequeathing to our younger successors, and on which careers and reputations will be built.

The book is a must for anybody who wants to study butterfly (and not only) biology and ecology seriously. I believe that it also represents a source of inspiration for people studying different organisms.

Ground covered is broad; to deal with everything in detail would require a whole bookshelf. The book clearly explains basic - but far from uncomplicated - concepts, supported by a glossary of terms of exceptional clarity...which goes the extra mile in explaining ideas. Text is supported by a plethora of colourful and simplified figures and charts which in some books and publications can be daunting, but here captions are as lengthy and detailed as required to explain a point or principle. As a comprehensive whole this book serves as a fascinating, deftly and elegantly written summary of current knowledge. It doesn't seek to provide definitive answers to specific queries - in many cases there are none - but presents issues and ideas fundamental to future research in a readable and accessible text.

Even by its own admission, this is a truly extraordinary work.

This work will probably be of greatest help to university-based ecologists, supervisors and doctoral students interested, or potentially interested in butterflies as model organisms (I am tempted to say systems), as it offers 'in one place' an exceptionally rich source of information about particular taxa, biotic interrelationships, and varying systems biology approaches to analysis. Amateur entomologists and other naturalists with a serious interest in analytical approaches to ecology and behaviour will also find it valuable and thought-provoking.

Roger Dennis's book is a heroic attempt to deal with many very important issues in general biology, and in so doing he has raised the level of our understanding of butterfly biology and natural history, in the context of life as a whole, to a new level. For this he is to be greatly congratulated.

A lifetime's work by a legend in his field, this inspirational book delves deep into the life history and behaviour of butterflies. The breadth of coverage is extraordinary, and you marvel at the complexity of butterfly development stages, with each overcoming a diverse array of challenges whilst displaying a bewildering range of traits and behaviours. At the heart of the book is the development of around one hundred (many illustrated) models on life history, behaviour and a wealth of other aspects of biology. Whether you are an amateur entomologist, an academic researcher working on lepidopterans, or simply curious about the journey of insect eggs to beautiful adults, you should at least dip into this landmark volume.