Osmoregulation in Insects

动物通过多种途径失水，包括皮肤表面蒸发、呼吸失水和排泄失水。人们早就知道，昆虫可能特别容易受到快速失水的影响，因为它们体型小，而且它们生活在干燥的环境中，包括（储存的粮食、沙漠、咸水等）。该项目包括对果蝇种群的水分调节机制的研究，果蝇已经经历了200多代的选择，以增强对干燥环境的抵抗力。使用经过对干燥环境抗性选择的果蝇提供了几个实验优势。选择在单个物种中导致巨大的生理差异，从而允许进行详细的生理比较。种群的历史是已知的，生理变化发生的时间也是已知的。最后，通过对果蝇进行这些研究，大量的分子和遗传技术可以用于研究昆虫体内水分调节的机制。这些工作对开发干扰害虫物种水分平衡的技术、生产新的无毒杀虫剂和发现新的昆虫防治策略都有很大的帮助。

Animals lose water through a variety of avenues, including evaporation from the skin surface, respiratory water loss and excretory water loss. It has long been known that insects may be particularly vulnerable to rapid water loss due to their small size and their occurrence in dry environments, including (stored grain, deserts, saline waters, etc.). This project includes studies on the mechanisms of water regulation in populations of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, which have undergone selection for more than 200 generations for increased resistance to dry environments. Use of fruit flies that have undergone selection for resistance to dry environments provides several experimental advantages. Selection leads to large physiological differences in a single species, allowing detailed physiological comparisons to be carried out. The history of the populations is known, as is the timing of the processes by which the physiological changes have occurred. Finally by conducting these studies with fruit flies, a vast array of molecular and genetic techniques becomes available for studying the mechanisms of water regulation in insects. Such work may be very helpful in developing techniques for interfering with water balance in insect pest species, in the production of new non-toxic insecticides, and in the discovery of novel insect control strategies.