Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology 354 (2008) 241www.elsevier.com/locate/jembe

Book review

Marine Ecology, Sean D. Connell, Bronwyn M. Gillanders(Eds.), Oxford University Press, (2007), ISBN:978-0-19-555302-4 (paperback), GBP 33.99, 630 pp

For one with professional roots in the culture of northernhemisphere ecology and the temperate reefs of California, ittook only a few dives along the southeastern Australian coast inthe early 1980's to alter forever my thinking about ecologicalpossibilities. Cuttle fish swimming among temperate laminar-ians growing with giant fucleans next to “tropical” Caulerpamixed with innumerable red algae? Marine Ecology providesan Australian perspective on marine ecological processes, re-views what is known about the structure and dynamics ofAustralian marine environments, and highlights conservationissues. It does this through the thoughtful efforts of 33 primaryauthors contributing 23 chapters distributed within four parts:Fundamental Concepts in Marine Ecology, Australian Bioge-ography and Connectivity, Australian Communities, and Con-servation and Management.

The Preface aims the book at Australian and internationalresearchers who desire a synthesis of the country's marineecology and approaches to it. In this regard it achieves a nearbull's-eye. However, I would have liked a chapter devotedexclusively to the physical–chemical environment, and a chap-ter that brought together discussions of issues like quality ofevidence, scale and generality that are scattered throughout thebook. Australians have led much of the debate on these issues,and while arguably more about human nature than about nature,they are critically important to doing ecology and interpretingthe results. I was surprised that New Zealand was not includedgiven the strong professional connectivity across the Tasman.The considerable knowledge of marine environments in NZwould have provided informative comparisons.

doi:10.1016/j.jembe.2007.11.004

The publisher (www.oup.com.au/orc/connell) touts the bookas a text, and it does discuss fundamental marine ecologicalconcepts and includes questions and a glossary at the end of eachchapter. However, most chapters are presented at an advancedlevel, and emphasis and depth vary among them, as do thenumber and quality of illustrations. Advanced students could fillin the gaps and background as necessary, but beginners wouldfind the going difficult without a foundation in general ecologyand considerable infilling from other reading and lectures. Thecomplete lack of color is uninformative and unattractive. Blackand white copies of color photos simply do not do justice toorganisms or seascapes, and make figures that originally hadcolor scales incomprehensible. The figures are available on theweb site (password needed), but even there many that shouldbe color remain black and white. For those who have not seenthe organisms or the environments discussed, better illustrat-ed books like Neil Andrew's “Under Southern Seas: TheEcology of Australia's Rocky Reefs” would be useful compan-ion volumes.

Marine Ecology is a good reference text that presents andsynthesizes the many contributions made from research inAustralia. It clearly shows that the relative importance of marineecological processes can vary greatly, even within habitats, andthat if there are non-trivial generalities, they are likely con-textual. While this may be unsettling for some, it helps setunbiased research agendas and promises to improve our under-standing of nature and the science in environmental policy andmanagement.

Michael S. FosterMoss Landing Marine Laboratories, USA

E-mail address: mfoster@mlml.calstate.edu.