Introduction

Abstract

Arthropods, particularly the insects, offer distinct advantages as sources of experimental material for the study of ion and fluid transport. Insect epithelia are histologically simple. They are one cell layer thick and generally not associated with underlying cellular connective tissues. These characteristics have contributed to the substantial successes to date in isolating intact and viable epithelial organs for study in vitro. The chapters in this volume by O’Donnell and Maddrell (Chapter 2) and by Hanrahan et al. (Chapter 3) demonstrate the elegant techniques that have been developed to exploit these advantages. Insect physiologists have pioneered many miniaturizations of analytical techniques in response to the challenges of working with small animals. Machin (Chapter 4) describes in detail a number of the techniques that he has developed to analyze the uptake of water from subsaturated air by small arthropods.