Traditionally, behaviour and physiology have been considered two separate fields of biology with the majority of available literature focusing on one or the other. Recently, the need for a multidisciplinary approach to these topics has been realised, highlighted by some of the sessions to be held at the 2003 annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology such as regulation of behaviour and mechanisms of behaviour. The proposed volume aims to bring together these disciplines in a comprehensive review of the available literature. Volume 24 will be novel in actively bridging these two areas of fish biology together and considering them as inextricably linked. The progression of chapters focuses on different aspects of the life history of a fish, from predator avoidance through to reproduction, each written by scientists currently bridging the gap between behaviour and physiology in their own specialised subdiscipline. There is multidisciplinary and integrative research in fish biology. It is written by internationally recognized researchers. It encompasses the whole life span of fish. A wide variety of inter-related topics are presented in a cohesive format.