This book covers the full breadth of forest entomology. It combines the work of forest entomologists working on the impact and management of forest pests with those involved in diversity assessment and conservation of insects in forests. Forests and Insects demonstrates that both these disciplines demand an understanding of population and community biology. The book covers such topics as colonization of trees by insects, population dynamics of forest insects, insect natural enemies, the effects of climate change and pollution on forest pests, spatial variation in the abundance of insects, the mineralization of carbon by termites, the impact of herbivorous insects, and the conservation of forest insect diversity, including the effects of forest fragmentation and deforestation. This Royal Entomological Society Symposium volume will be of great interest to all agricultural and forest entomologists, population and community biologists, pest management specialists and anyone concerned with the conservation of forest biodiversity.

As forests are cut down, altered and fragmented, the communities of organisms associated with them are also affected. Predictions of global species extinction rates based on forest loss range 1% to 10% each decade. Because arthropods comprise the largest component of animal species richness, it is inevitable that many arthropod species will become extinct. Millions of these species are thought to live in the forest canopy. During the last twenty years recognition of the importance of canopy arthropods to global biodiversity and the crucial roles arthropods play in forests has led to a revolution in the study and understanding of the arthropod community structure in the forest canopy. Recent advances have been greatly aided by the development of improved sampling techniques and new methods of access to the forest canopy. Canopy Arthropods brings together for the first time a wide range of the most recent studies of arthropods living in forest canopies and comes from a truly international team of contributors.