Gravity and the Behavior of Unicellular Organisms: 40 (Developmental and Cell Biology Series, Series Number 40)

How do single cells recognize gravity and apply their perception to their ecological advantage? This book summarizes historical and current approaches to this basic question. Single cells play a significant role in food webs and also present valuable model systems for studying the mechanisms of gravity perception, a topic of increasing interest in these days of experimentation in space. The book is directed to biologists and other life scientists interested in space sciences, cellular evolution, cell motility, signal transduction and ecophysiology.

Prof. Dr. Donat-Peter Häder holds the chair in botany at the Friedrich-Alexander Universität. He has been interested in gravitational biology and space research for more than 20 years and was involved in numerous space shuttle, sounding rocket, satellite and parabolic flight experiments. He is the author and editor of more than a dozen books and has published more than 450 papers in scientific journals.

Michael Lebert is a botanist active in gravity-related research and computer sciences for 10 years. He has been involved as co-investigator in numerous biological experiments in microgravity on airplanes and sounding rockets.

Ruth Hemmersbach, zoologist and cell biologist, has been active in gravity-related research for more than 20 years. She has been principal investigator for several biological experiments in microgravity on airplanes, sounding rockets and space shuttles.