Insects are the most diverse and dominant group of organisms on Earth. They are highly sensitive to environmental changes and are capable of responding dramatically by engineering further changes in ecosystem structure and function. Their capacity to respond dramatically to environmental gradients often brings them into conflict with our resource management goals. Insects are also potentially useful indicators of impending environmental changes. integrates the traditional emphasis on insect diversity, life history adaptations, and species interactions with insects roles in ecosystems subject to environmental changes. * Integrates individual, population, community, and ecosystem levels of ecological resolution * Integrating insect ecology with disturbance dynamics and environmental change * Relating population dynamics in time and space (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 * Provides a context for evolution as a major form of feedback between community modification of ecosystem conditions and selection of individual attributes that potentially regulate ecosystem conditions Timothy D. Schowalter, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, U.S.A.