Preface -- 1 From immunology to eco-immunology -- 2 System biology models and conceptualizations applied to eco-immunology -- 3 Reproductive and immune system interactions in the context of life history and sexual selection theory -- 4 Host-Parasite Interactions -- 5 Immune-neuroendocrine integration and its evolution -- 6 Thymic maturation and programmed cell death -- 7 The new antigenic ecospace of the globalized world and its impact on the immune system: the battleground of trade off and antagonistic pleiotropy -- 8 Population Immunology: germs, aging and inflammation -- 9 Mouse models as paradigms of human diseases.-Index.

This book represents a cutting-edge contribution giving an all-around perspective of eco-immunology today. Beside questions of the utmost importance for the whole community of immunologists, e.g, the intrinsic limits of immunological experiments performed at the bench on a limited number of selected models, the book covers several other facets of the eco-immunological approach, including host-parasite interactions, human aging and population immunology. Throughout the book the importance of population dynamics and evolutionary diversification of immune systems is frequently recalled, and makes the reader aware of the basic similarities and differences existing between humans and the models adopted for studying human immune system. The evidenced differences have been recently challenging the reliability of several established animal models and in the book it is discussed for the first time in analytical terms whether mice are reliable models of human inflammatory disorders.