Encyclopedia of Tidepools and Rocky Shores, edited by Mark W. Denny & Steven D. Gaines, by Malcolm Ebright

Natural Resources Journal, Sep 2017

By Robert E. Knowlton, Published on 01/01/08

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Encyclopedia of Tidepools and Rocky Shores, edited by Mark W. Denny & Steven D. Gaines, by Malcolm Ebright

NATURAL RESOURCES JOURNAL Enc yclopedia of Tidepools and Rocky Shores, edited by Mark W. Denny & Steven D. Gaines, by Malcolm Ebright Robert E. Knowlton 0 0 Robert E. Knowlton Professor Emeritus of Biology Department of Biological Sciences George Washington University , USA - Encyclopedia of Tidepools and Rocky Shores. Edited by Mark W. Denny & Steven D.Gaines. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007. Pp. 735. $95.00 hardcover. Rocky shores, loosely defined, are those coastal areas dominated by massive formations of "bedrock" (often accompanied by boulders and cobbles, but relatively free of sediments) in an uneven configuration of ledges, overhangs, crevices, and depressions where water accumulates (i.e., tidepools). More specifically, hard surfaces between high and low tide levels, usually referred to as the rocky intertidal zone (acronymically and affectionately called the RITZ by some), are the ones most visited because they can be accessed easily when the tide is out. For centuries, these tracts where land and saltwater meet have attracted scientists, photographers, poets, virtually everyone who is curious, with their craggy wave-swept beauty and the abundance and diversity of biota (seaweeds and animals) that can be found on their surfaces. The charisma of the rocky intertidal zone has, at the same time, been a catalyst for and a result of the many books that have been written about it, notably classics such as Between PacificTides, by E.F. Ricketts and J.Calvin (1939), Rachel Carson's The Edge of the Sea (1955), and Life Between Tidemarks on Rocky Shores by T.A. and Anne Stephenson (1972). More recently, as interrelationships (e.g., competition, predation) among the biological components were demonstrated by ecologists, based on experiments conducted not only in the laboratory but also on the shore, books of a more technical nature appeared more frequently, along with a wave of field guides (to identification). Among the plethora of books on this subject, as good as many of them are, I am not aware of any that contain such wide-ranging articles, in a single volume, until now, with the publication of this encyclopedia. This massive work contains 186 articles, organized alphabetically (Abalones to Zonation), each title being a key word or short phrase, sometimes followed by a subordinate descriptor (such as "Dispersal, Measurement of"). The table of contents also contains some other entries, worded alternatively (e.g., "Red Tides: see Algal Blooms") or key words that might not have been included in a particular title (e.g., "Sea Slugs: see Nudibranchs and Related Species"). Common names of plant and animal groups are almost always used in the main text (e.g., "Snails" rather than Gastropoda), as well as in the index. More helpful to the reader who is primarily interested in being tutored in a particular aspect of marine science is another list of the contents arranged by subject area, as follows: Geology, Oceanography, Climatology, Plants (including algae and microbes), Invertebrates, Vertebrates, Ecology and Behavior, Physiology, Human Uses and Interactions, Research and Methodology. Essentially there are four different categories of articles, roughly equal in terms of space: (1) those dealing with physical-chemical-geological matters (i.e., aspects of oceanography other than biological), (2) a survey of biota (kinds of organisms) found in near-shore rocky areas, (3) principles of ecology (including ecophysiology), and (4) a miscellany of articles oriented toward human impacts on rocky shores and ways in which they are studied. Each entry normally contains an introductory definition of the topic and its significance, followed by additional text, often with subheadings, and terminates with reference to allied articles elsewhere in the book and a listing of other relevant publications (occasionally a textbook or two but mostly specific journal articles). However, sometimes important papers (e.g., R.T. Paine's demonstration of sea stars as keystone species) alluded to in the text (of "Competition," p. 157) are not cited in the bibliography. The glossary (at the end of the book), with more than 900 definitions of terms, will make it somewhat easier for the patient reader to translate some (but by no means all) of the technical terms found in the body of the article. Names of major animal taxa (phylum, class, etc.) were mostly not included here, or in the index. I found the latter to be far from complete and not very helpful in finding detailed information; only a scattering of algal genera and species are listed. As an example, a classic paper by J.H. Connell and R.O. Slatyer is discussed extensively (in "Succession," pp. 556-557), yet only Connell is listed in the index. The editors provide helpful advice to readers in how to use this resource, not only in their preface but also in a separate "Guide to the Encyclopedia." Here it is said that on the website (http:// www.ucpress.edu/books/ (...truncated)


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Robert E. Knowlton. Encyclopedia of Tidepools and Rocky Shores, edited by Mark W. Denny & Steven D. Gaines, by Malcolm Ebright, Natural Resources Journal, 2018, Volume 48, Issue 1,