The maintenance of electrolytes and water by animals requires continuous work, and the costs of achieving a stable internal environment are a significant expenditure of an animal’s energy budget. The Durant Lab is particularly interested in the mechanisms of solute and water transport that underpin animal success in variable and often challenging environments. We work with invertebrate animals across a diversity of body plans and life histories, but we mainly study the arthropods (e.g. insects and crustaceans) that have significant medical and economical importance. Our research questions, and the tools that we use to test these, span multiple levels of biological organization from both laboratory-based (cell, molecular, organ systems) and ecological contexts, to advance our understanding of how animals fundamentally work.