Respiration and Osmoregulation in Insects

动物通过各种途径失水，包括皮肤表面蒸发、粪便失水、尿液失水和呼吸道失水。最后一种途径，即呼吸失水，在小型动物和干燥环境中可能特别重要。人们早就认识到，昆虫可能特别容易迅速失水，因为它们体积小，而且出现在干燥的环境中(例如储存的谷物、沙漠栖息地、咸水湖等)。PI正在研究一种非常小的昆虫--果蝇--的失水率和失水途径。PI的目标是了解这种失水是如何发生的，以及这种失水与昆虫的呼吸模式有什么关系。这些工作可能对开发新的无毒杀虫剂和昆虫控制策略非常有帮助。

Animals lose water through a variety of avenues, including evaporation from the skin surface, fecal water loss, urinary water loss and respiratory water loss. This last pathway, respiratory water loss, can be particularly important in small animals and in dry environments. It has long been realized that insects may be particularly vulnerable to rapid water loss due to their small size and their occurrence in dry environments (e.g. stored grain, desert habitats, saline lakes, etc.) . The PI is examining the rates and pathways of water loss in a very small insect, the fruit fly. The PI's goal is to understand how such water loss occurs and what the relation is to the insect's breathing pattern. Such work may be very helpful in developing new non-toxic insecticides and insect control strategies.