Open Access Chemical Ecology Textbook

- Let’s join forces to make education, science and the thrilling knowledge on chemical interactions among living beings that we’ve gathered as a community accessible for all -

Together with a group of 47 international experts, we are developing an open-access, graduate level (MSc, early PhD) Chemical Ecology textbook to excite scientists new to the field. The book provides both breadth and depth of topic coverage from the microbial world to plants and animals representing those from diverse walks, flights, and swims of life. Each chapter introduces seminal studies and technological/methodological fundamentals of chemical ecology with accessible language and an engaging approach for the readers. This initiative will provide a valuable resource for teaching chemical ecology, and our main aim is to make it accessible for educators and students at no cost.

The team of authors (60% female, 40% male) represents all 6 habited continents and 15 countries, including Australia, Austria, Brazil, China, Costa Rica, Denmark, Finland, Germany, India, Mexico, the Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA. Authors represent all stages of scientific careers from postdoc to Emeritus. We currently have partial funding from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology and private funds, and hope for the community’s support to reach the goal for a high-quality open access book edited by Wageningen Academic Publishers that will be available online.

Editors: Astrid T. Groot, Remington X. Poulin, Laura V. Florez, and Nicole van Dam

Book contents:

I: The microverse of chemical ecology

Microbe-microbe interactions

Plant-microbe interactions (inc.fungi)

Microbes as ecological mediators in animals

II: Aquatic chemical ecology

Aquatic chemical ecology

III: Chemical communication in insects

Evolution of chemical communication in insects

Chemical ecology of social Insects

Image credit: Jan van Arkel

IV: Chemical ecology of plant mediated interactions with the environment

Plant - insect interactions

Pollinators and floral volatiles

Chemical ecology of belowground plant interactions

Chemical ecology in agriculture

Fruit, seed and propagule dispersal

V: Humans and other vertebrates’ intra- and interspecific communication

Vertebrate chemical ecology

Human chemical ecology

Chemical defenses in animals

VI: Anthropogenic effects on chemical ecology

Disease vector ecology

Food chemical ecology

Chemical ecology in the Anthropocene

VII: Core analytical methods in chemical Ecology: Collection, separation, identification and quantification of semiochemicals

Image credit: Jan van Arkel

Cover image credit: Jan van Arkel