"Key features: integrates individual, population, community, and ecosystem levels of ecological resolution; illustrates the relationship of insect ecology to disturbance dynamics and environmental change; relates metapopulation dynamics to ecosystem structure and function; demonstrates the ability of insect functional groups to affect ecosystem and global processes, such as primary production, biogeochemical cycling, and carbon flux; and provides a context for evolution as feedback between community modification of ecosystem conditions and selection of individual attributes regulating ecosystem conditions."--Jacket.