The 2022 Molecular Physiology volume of Current Opinion in Insect Science offers an overview of transition-metal ion (iron, copper, manganese, and zinc) biology and nonessential heavy metal ion (cadmium, lead, and methylmercury) toxicology in the model organism Drosophila melanogaster and in other insect species. An article on ticks serves as an informative evolutionary comparator for iron and heme physiology. The complex interface between environmental exposure to metals, symbiotic or pathogenic microbes, and insect behavior and reproduction is considered.
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