The book features comparative perspectives on the field of chemical ecology, present and future, offered by scientists from a wide variety of disciplines. The scientists contributing to this book -biologists, ecologists, biochemists, chemists, biostatisticians - are interested in marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems and work on life forms ranging from micro-organisms to mammals, including humans, living in areas from the tropics to polar regions.

Here, they cross their analyses of the present state of chemical ecology and its perspectives for the future. Those presented here include complex, multispecies communities and cover a wide range both of organisms and of the types of molecules that mediate the interactions between them. Up to now, no book has presented a solid scientific treatment of a wide range of examples. This book illustrates a diverse panel of the most advanced aspects of this rapidly expanding field.