Mark D. Bertness, Atlantic Shorelines, Natural History and Ecology

Abstract

Princeton University Press, Woodstock, UK, 2007, 446 pp, ISBN (paper) 0-691-12554-6 USD 99.50, GBP 65.00, USD 45.00, GBP 29.95 ISBN (cloth) 0-691-12553-8 Gerhard C. Cade´e Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007 Atlantic shorelines, is an easily readable introduction to coastal ecology, aimed at undergraduate students as well as a broader interest public. It avoids, as much as possible, jargon and mathematical formulas, and modeling is absent as well. This might be one of the last textbooks on marine ecology (albeit only dealing with coastal ecosystems), written by one author. With an increase in knowledge it will become more and more difficult to overview the entire field. The advantage is of course that one author might produce a well-balanced and well-structured book. The first four chapters deal with the geological and physical forces that shaped the North American Atlantic coastal habitats, trophic relations, reproduction and recruitment of organisms, and processes that influence distribution (zonation). The last three chapters deal with habitats: rocky shores, soft-sediment habitats, and the salt marsh and mangrove habitats. Each chapter concludes with a very useful one-page summary and some suggestions for further reading. A glossary of seven pages gives short descriptions of the terminology used. A long reference list of some 750 titles (from which Bertness himself was author or coauthor of almost 10%) and an index complete the book. A textbook, written by one author has also its shortcomings, one cannot be an expert in all fields. So on page 37, phytoplankton is stated to consist of diatoms and dinoflagellates only, whereas cyanobacteria and other flagellates may be dominant and bloom-forming such as the colonial Phaeocystis and the nanoplanktonic chrysophyte Aureococcus causing ‘brown tides’ along the American Atlantic coast (Laguna Madre, Long Island Sound, Narragansett Bay). The reader will also not learn about Archaea that appear to be present in large numbers also in coastal waters. The microbial loop in the food chains is not dealt with and microphytobenthos is not mentioned as important primary producers in tidal flat areas in this chapter (they are mentioned on p. 247). I do not understand why (p. 42) decaying algae accumulate on the seafloor below the euphotic zone in the absence of primary producers? Does Bertness mean that primary consumers (including bacteria) are few or absent here when the accumulation is too high and the bottom becomes anoxic? The maximum depth below which marine photosynthetic plants cannot survive is not named compensation depth (p. 40 and fig. 2.4). The text in the glossary is okay, at the compensation depth photosynthesis rate equals respiration rate (over 24 hours) and there is no net growth. However, algae can survive well below the compensation depth and do so either for short periods, e.g., during strong vertical turbulence or for longer periods as dormant cells or in the form of cysts. Dinoflagellates may even actively commute...