Fertilization and Activation of Development, Volume 162 in the Current Topics in Developmental Biology series, highlights new advances in the field, with this new volume presenting interesting chapters written by an international board of authors.Chapters in this new release include Fertilization and the fast block to polyspermy in the African Clawed Frog, Xenopus laevis: A historical perspective, The Mammalian Egg's Zona Pellucida, Fertilization, and Fertility, Function, structure, and regulation of the broadly conserved gamete membrane fusion protein, HAP2, Gamete activation for fertilization and seed development in flowering plants, Paternal contributions to mammalian zygote, and much more.Additional sections cover Ovarian follicle formation and activation, Cytoskeletal dynamics in gamete (pro)nuclear migration across flowering plants, animals, and yeast, and Luteinizing hormone-induced changes in the structure of mammalian preovulatory follicles. - Presents a comprehensive exploration of the fertilization process, including gamete interaction, fusion, and early embryonic development - Provides in-depth analysis of the molecular mechanisms underlying fertilization, sperm-egg recognition, and activation of embryonic development - Examines the key events and signaling pathways involved in activating embryonic development post-fertilization