The new and updated edition of this accessible text provides a comprehensive overview of the comparative physiology of animals within an environmental context.

• Includes two brand new chapters on Nerves and Muscles and the Endocrine System.
• Discusses both comparative systems physiology and environmental physiology.
• Analyses and integrates problems and adaptations for each kind of environment: marine, seashore and estuary, freshwater, terrestrial and parasitic.
• Examines mechanisms and responses beyond physiology.
• Applies an evolutionary perspective to the analysis of environmental adaptation.
• Provides modern molecular biology insights into the mechanistic basis of adaptation, and takes the level of analysis beyond the cell to the membrane, enzyme and gene.
• Incorporates more varied material from a wide range of animal types, with less of a focus purely on terrestrial reptiles, birds and mammals and rather more about the spectacularly successful strategies of invertebrates.

A companion site for this book with artwork for downloading is available at: www.blackwellpublishing.com/willmer/