The rapidly evolving discipline of
environmental endocrinology is briefly reviewed from the 'heroic era' to the
present. Environmental endocrinology has developed in response to the need to
understand how hormones modulate and control physiological processes in animals
exposed to the exigencies of their particular, natural, environment. This has
only been made possible through spectacular developments in hormone assay
techniques which now make feasible hormone measurements on microlitre volumes
of body fluids. The results of some recent research programmers working on
animals in the field are reviewed. These include the reproductive responses of
migratory birds in the Arctic, the role of anti diuretic hormone in the survival
of desert rodents and marsupial wallabies, some interesting behavioral effects
of glucocorticoids in reptiles, and the dynamic interplay between hormones and
social status in primates.
