Marine Community Ecology and Conservation
https://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/6491.htm
Editors: Mark Bertness, John Bruno, Brian Silliman, John Stachowicz
MS&E Agency
ISBN: 9781605352282 (hardback)
US $ 172.95
This book is intended as a ‘sequel’ of the excellent ‘Marine Community Ecology’ (edited by Bertness, Gaines & Hay), covering how the field of marine ecology has changed over the last 13 years. The book adds, however, an important section on conservation and management of marine systems – much needed and overdue, considering that marine scientists are increasingly expected to provide practical solutions to the many impacts threatening the oceans and their diversity. This book provides a good starting point to understand and manage these challenges.
The book is pitched to give advanced undergraduate and graduate students a current overview of what is known about the structure, functioning and conservation of species and communities that inhabit marine systems as well as to serve as a general reference for researchers. It serves its purpose well, starting by introducing some of the physico-chemical aspects of the oceans and other processes that generates patterns in marine communities, e.g. diseases and dispersion. Although some of the issues presented in this part can be considered quite dense to some students, potentially ‘scaring them off’, the authors did a great job in presenting some complex concepts in a very ‘palatable’ way, so students should be able to easily engage with the text.
The second part of the book gives a comprehensive idea on the main types of communities/habitats found in marine systems, e.g. kelp forests, coral reefs, soft-sediment communities, discussing the major advances in knowledge made during the past decade. This section of the book is particularly good for teaching purposes, especially when combined to some of the chapters in the ‘Marine Community Ecology’ book that presented some more general and basic aspects of each type of community. Importantly, this book includes other types of marine communities besides the benthic communities, such as pelagic and phytoplankton, which allows for a more holistic view of the oceans.
The third and last part of the book focuses on some of the conservation and management issues of marine systems, which in my opinion, is one of the highlights of the book. This section gives an idea of not only the problems our oceans are currently facing, such as overfishing and habitat degradation, but also some of the management practices and ‘solutions-based’ science being done to try to overcome these challenges. This latter is particularly important because it gives the students and early career researchers some material to think of how they can contribute to improve the conditions of marine systems and the importance of basic and applied science in doing so.
My major criticism of this book is that it is extremely focused on the ecology of the Northern Hemisphere systems (e.g. North America and Europe), in particular the USA. This is clearly reflected in the list of authors, where, out of the total 48 contributing authors, 36 are from American Institutions while the Southern Hemisphere is represented by only one author (Prof Craig Johnston from University of Tasmania). Therefore, for undergraduate and graduate students in Australia, this book should be read in conjunction with texts that have a stronger focus on Australian/New Zealand examples such as the book “Marine Ecology” (edited by Sean Connell & Bronwyn Gillanders).
Also, I was quite disappointed to see that none of the authors included a ‘molecular perspective’ in their texts. One of the main advances in the past decade in the field of, not only, marine ecology, but biology, in general, was the development of new technologies that now allow the studying of microbe communities, changing our understanding of the diversity and function of microorganisms and their importance in the marine environment. Microbes have essential roles in the functioning of marine systems, being responsible for the regulation of important biogeochemical processes of the ocean. Understanding their role and the mechanisms by which these communities are affected by some of the threats mentioned in the book is essential if we are to fully understand and be able to predict the consequences to whole systems associated with their presence or absence. An integration of some of the aspects of these micro-macro interactions would have greatly improved the book and benefited its readers. Hopefully, this topic will be included in their next 10 years revision.
In summary – I consider this to be an excellent book and recommend it to every marine scientist in Australia and worldwide, especially to undergraduate and graduate students. There are some great colour figures and diagrams that help readers to quickly grasp the main concepts being discussed in each section, as well as an extensive list of references at the end of each chapter, that should be beneficial to all marine scientists.
Dr Mariana Mayer-Pinto
University of New South Wales