Estuarine Ecology.

Estuaries, Resources and Their Functions

Publication of "Estuarine Ecology" by John W. Day, Jr., Charles A. S. Hall, W. Michael Kemp, and Alejandro Yanez-Arancibia has been announced by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10 1 5 8. Day is with the Center for Wetlands Resources, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge; Hall is with the State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse; Kemp is with the Horn Point Environmental Laboratories, University of Maryland, Cambridge; and Yanez-Arancibia is with the Instituto de Ciencias del Mar y Limnologia, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City.

The book is divided into six parts, with the first reviewing estuaries and estuarine ecology on simulated "trips" through three different estuaries (Massachusetts' North River, Louisiana's Barataria Bay, and Mexico's Laguna de Terminos), wherein readers are introduced to pertinent introductory material, basic definitions, theory, and selected issues. The second section discusses various physical considerations (estuarine geomorphology and chemistry and physical oceanography). Section three reviews estuarine plants (phytoplankton, salt marshes and mangrove swamps, and seagrasses) and primary productivity. Sections four and five, respectively, deal with reduced carbon and its fate in the estuary and the estuarine consumers-zooplankton, the estuarine bottom and benthic subsystem, the nekton, and the role of wildlife (the higher vertebrates-mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians) in estuarine ecosystems.

Finally, Section six, "humans and estuaries," devotes one chapter to estuarine fisheries-their variation, harvest, and management; and another to the human impact on estuaries. The meat" of the book, of course, is in the central sections, where the authors review and discuss the estuarine primary producers, microbial ecology and organic detritus, and the estuarine consumers, following the flow of organic matter from production by plants, to processing and cycling by microbes, and onward through the consumer levels.

Information is provided on rates, patterns, and factors controlling primary production, the role of detritus in ecosystems, and on estuarine consumers-the zooplankton, benthos, nekton, and vertebrates. There are a few minor typographical errors (i.e., the caption for Figure 12.1 refers to trawl, "pursp" seine, and "long time" fishing gear), but overall this will be a fine textbook on estuarine ecology. Indexed, each chapter also contains many useful and rather recent citations to the literature. Hardbound, the 558page volume costs $54.95.