The water requirements of insects reflect the wide variations in their habitats and food sources. Freshwater pools, salt-water lakes, arid deserts, plant sap, animal blood and dry stored products all present particular problems of water balance. Aquatic insects have a plentiful water supply. For those living in fresh water, intake must be restricted and output facilitated. The reverse applies to salt-water insects. Fluid-feeding sap-suckers and blood-suckers require a high throughput of fluid food in order to extract sufficient nutrients, causing problems of water elimination. Most other terrestrial insects need to conserve their body water in the face of considerable forces acting to deplete it. The high surface-to-volume ratio inherent in the small body size of insects exacerbates evaporative losses into dry air. Most restrict those losses to a minimum by means of a cuticular lipid layer; controversy continues to surround the way cuticular lipids restrict water movement through the cuticle. Other insects use enhanced evaporation as a cooling device. A few are able to absorb water from the vapour phase of the air. In satisfying their water requirements, insects have developed some remarkable mechanisms invoking physiological, structural, chemical, physical and mechanical principles – a truly interdisciplinary approach.
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