"Promoting a conceptual understanding and taking an integrative systems approach, this book illustrates the individual organization as well as the collective interdependence of each complete physiological system. The text begins with chapters on integrative principles and on the genomic, molecular, and cellular basis of physiology, then proceeds to chapters on individual organ systems. For each organ system, evolutionary forces as well as current cellular and molecular research are discussed. To clearly illustrate system interdependence, each systems chapter contains a summary, titled "Making Connections." To make the text even more accessible to students, the authors also incorporate a comparative approach to animal physiology, examining the basic physiology of many vertebrate and nonvertebrate animals as well as their primary diseases and ability to respond to environmental changes."--Cover.