The role of experimental entomology in working out fundamental problems of physiology and medicine (L.A. Orbeli and experimental entomology)

摘要

This paper is based on the author's lecture presented at the conference Theoretical and Applied Entomology: Past, Present and Future, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the Russian Entomological Society, which took place on April 2, 2009 in St. Petersburg. The lecture suggested a definition of the concept experimental entomology and listed the most popular research objects. A brief historical review of the origin and development of some trends in experimental entomology in the XX and XXI centuries in Russia was given. Special attention was paid to the contribution of Acad. L.A. Orbeli and his ideas concerning evolution of functions and functional evolution as well as to the importance of ideas of his collaborators and followers, G.V. Gershuni, L.G. Leibson and A.L. Polenov, in developing a number of present directions of experimental entomology. These classic and ultramodern directions include comparative genetics of behavior (M.E. Lobashev, A.K. Voskresenskaya, N.G. Lopatina, I.A. Nikitina, V.B. Savvateev, V.V. Ponomarenko, N.G. Kamyshev), genetics of higher nervous activity (N.G. Lopatina), neurogenetics (E.V. Savvateeva-Popova), biorhythmology (ecological concept of photoperiodismA.S. Danilevsky, investigation of the physiological mechanisms of photoperiodic adaptationsV.P. Tyshchenko), immunology (S.I. Chernysh), neuroendocrinology and mechanisms of stress (I.Yu. Raushenbach, S.I. Chernysh, G.V. Ben'kovskaya), psychoneuroendocrinology (the hypothesis of dynamic neuroendocrine integrationA.N. Knyazev), etc. A special place in the lecture was assigned to sensory physiology of insects and, first of all, to the series of monographs by F.G. Gribakin, Yu.A. Elizarov, G.A. Mazokhin-Porshnyakov, R.D. Zhantiev, A.V. Popov, V.L. Svidersky, A.V. Skirkyavichus, L.I. Frantsevich awarded the USSR State Prize in 1987. The origin of a novel field, cognitive ethology (Zh.I. Reznikova) that emerged at the intersection of ethology, ecology, theory of evolution, and comparative psychology is noted in the final part of the lecture.