This special issue is devoted to the International Conference on Chemical Communication and Regulation of Sexual Reproduction, Growth, and Maturation of Schistosomes held at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, on May 1-3, 1985. The papers are introduced with a Foreword by Dr. Everett L. Schiller who served also as the conference director and as one of two reviewers for each manuscript. The editors are grateful to several conference participants who also served as second reviewers: Drs. David A. Erasmus, L. K. Eveland, Bernard Fried, Eugene G. Hayunga, Walter M. Kemp, and Irene Popiel. We acknowledge the cooperation of Plenum Publishing Corporation in producing extra copies of this issue to accommodate registrants of the symposium and others interested. R.M. Silverstein J.B. Simeone, Editors Journal of Chemical Ecology