Quateernary insects and their environments

332

Quaternary Science Reviews: Volume 14

de1 Fuego, and of Helmens and others from van der Hammens group on Colombia. As there is no statement on what literature has been used, it is impossible to judge the reason for such omissions. Certainly it has nothing to do with being recent publications, because more recent papers have been cited. Personally I got more and more annoyed by the incomplete information in many of the figures, especially maps and diagrams. Lavishly illustrated at it is, there are a great many good quality and informative photographs. The handful of photographs in which (well-known) persons are more important than the captions suggest, should have been left out; there is no need for this sort of name-dropping. The incomplete information when it comes to maps and cartoons is more serious. By nature such artwork is taken from existing publications. The author should have realised that each and everyone of these illustrations should have been checked as part of the legend may have been in the original caption, or it may never have been there. As it is, information on part of the legend is missing in many figures; unexplained symbols abound. In general typos are rare, considering the size of the book, although there is one riddle, why does it say pollens almost twenty times, including in a figure (23.2)? As said above one can also judge the work of the publisher. As in many Elsevier publications the paper, the printing and the artwork are fine. But then, one has to spend a fortune for acquiring a copy, which means that one may demand top quality. As such there is one serious remark to be made, and this concerns the references. For a publisher in Holland, and working with bureau editors, there are far too many typos in the reference list, especially in German and even in Dutch names and titles. Somebody familiar with these languages should have checked the list, and this certainly has not been done. This is definitely a library volume. At the current price it will be far too expensive for many individuals to acquire a copy. In South America there may be even fewer of both. Which makes one wonder about the use of publishing valuable overviews at a price that few can afford. Jaap J.M. van der Meer Fysisch Geografisch en Bodemkundig Laboratorium, University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130, 1018 VZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Quaternary Insects and their Environments, by Scott A. Elias, Foreword by G. Russell Coope, Smithsonian Institution Press, Hardback, 1994, 256 pp., 31 b&w photos, 42 line illus., 531.25/US$47.95. “. . . Coleoptera are arguably the most sensitive indicator of climatic changes and conditions during the

Pleistocene . .” (Jones and Keen, 1993). Despite this assertion, and although Quaternary Entomology has gained an increasing importance in the different fields of palaeoecology during the last twenty years, no synthetic study presenting both the foundation and the main research methods of this discipline had been made so far, apart from the recent and very useful ‘Bibliography’ by Buckland and Coope (1991). This surprising lacuna is now filled by the work of Scott A. Elias. A fellow of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at Boulder, CO, U.S.A., Scott Elias has written some 50 publications dealing with Quatemary Coleoptera and was especially qualified to carry out this synthesis. After an enticing foreword by G. R. Coope, the work begins with a chapter devoted to a brief historical outline of Quaternary Entomology. This first part is of great interest because it gives an idea of the progress that has been achieved since the first steps of this discipline and it shows how much initial misconceptions may have obstructed the development of palaeoecological researchers based on the analysis of subfossil insect remains. Indeed, it was necessary to recall that during half a century (roughly from mid-19th to mid-20th century), researchers in that field had consisted mainly in describing as new species insect remains found in Quatemary sediments. As pointed out by Scott Elias, we owe to a few pioneers (among whom the Swedish entomologist, Carl Lindroth) the identification of these taxa as today existing species and the demonstration of the great morphological stability of these insects during the last 500 millennia. Under the impulse of Russell Coope (Birmingham) mainly, this concept gave birth to modem palaeoentomology and to palaeoecology based on the analysis of Quatemary insect remains. The two following chapters (2 and 3) make the reader acquainted with field-work and laboratory methods. The author provides first (Chapter 2) useful information about the structure of insect cuticulum, the sites, the types of sediment that are the richest in insect remains, as well as sampling, extraction and concentration techniques. These indications are particularly useful to students who wish to get initiated in palaeoentomology and to those researchers involved in other Quatemary disciplines who wish to become familiar with the basic techniques. Having myself been frequently approached by archaeologists who wanted to affect their own samplings before submitting them to me, I think that these 20 pages of practical information are particularly well-aimed and accessible to a large readership. Numerous advices concerning the identification of fossil Coleoptera are given in Chapter 3, together with a selection of scanning electron micrographs and drawings illustrating the most reliable diagnostic features for determination. In this chapter as in the rest of the work, Coleoptera are given the first place; but the other groups of insects and even arthropods are considered (Hymenoptera Formicidae, Hemiptera and Homoptera, Trichoptera, Diptera Chironomidae, Arachnids). Chapters 4, 5 and 6 discuss the interest of the study of

Book Reviews fossil insects in palaeoecology, palaeoclimatology and zoogeography. First the author lays stress on the exceptional abundance and variety of insects, and on the extraordinary diversity of their specific preferential habitats, unequalled in the animal kingdom: insects manage to colonize almost any available environment (except perhaps the open sea), even the most inimical ones, at any latitude and up to 5600 m altitude. In addition to the examples cited by the author, it is of interest to note that Coleoptera, such as polar Carabus C. polaris Popp., C. chamissonis Fioch., and C. tolli Popp. may endure temperatures of -50°C; the lethal temperature for deserticoleus Tenebrionidae would exceed 50°C; aquatic Coleoptera would be able to live in thermal waters of 40 to 45°C (Paulian, 1988). Of course, this ability to colonize the most diversified environments explains the qualitative and quantitative importance of insects for palaeoecological reconstructions. The species constancy of insects in the Quatemary is discussed in detail and numerous significant examples are cited by the author. The most striking example is perhaps the case of Micropeplus hoogendorni, a staphylinid described on the basis of specimens discovered in Alaska in sediments dated to 5.7 million years, but also found in an assemblage of British fossil insects of mid-Pleistocene age, and which in fact proved to be identical with the present species Micropeplus dokuchaevi just described from Siberia. This constancy is not analysed only from the morphological point of view but also from the ecological point of view, which is of particular importance in palaeo-ecology. Indeed, although the absence of morphological variations in insects can easily be demonstrated by simply comparing subfossil and modem specimens, this does not hold true for the ecological and physiological stability of species. However, it is a well established fact that the resemblance between the specific composition of fossil assemblages of any age and that of modem assemblages under similar climatic and environmental conditions reflects the stability of insect communities during the Quatemary and is therefore a testimony to the ecological stability of species. The chapter entitled The Value of insects in Palaeoecology ends with considerations about the sensitivity of insects to the physical and biological factors prevailing in their environment, be it either terrestrial or aquatic, and with the rapidity of their response to environmental changes. Scott Elias devotes a whole chapter (Chapter 5) to the importance of the analysis of insect fossil assemblages in palaeoclimatology, particularly in the reconstruction of palaeotemperatures. The author describes first clearly and in detail the method of climatic reconstruction developed by Atkinson et al. (1987), i.e. the Mutual Climatic Range Method. This simple technique of climatic reconstruction is based on a good knowledge of the modern climatic range to which each insect species from a given subfossil assemblage belongs today. The superimposition of the climatic ranges proper to each species from this assemblage makes it possible to define the climatic parameters corresponding to the conditions under which all the

333

species from this fossil assemblage may coexist. This technique proved to be particularly valuable, and during the last few years it largely contributed to demonstrate the extraordinary rapidity of the Quaternary climatic changes (in particular the sudden warming at the end of the last glaciation). More generally, the analysis by the author of a selection of works from Great Britain, continental Europe and North America, shows the palaeoentomology has become a major discipline in the field of continental palaeoclimatology. The spectacular variations in the geographical area of numerous species, sometimes within a very short time interval, are a testimony to the high power of dispersal of insects and to their great sensitivity to climatic changes. This biogeographical aspect of palaeoentomological researches is the subject of Chapter 5. On the basis of very significant examples, Scott Elias reports how during warm interstadial or interglacial periods the British Isles were invaded by Coleoptera such as are living today in southern Europe, some of them being considered as endemic in Sicilia or in the Iberian Peninsula. Reversely, elements with arctic or arctic and alpine affinities were present in the British Isles during colder periods. Researches show that these large scale distributional shifts also affected insects in North America. The importance of palaeoentomological researches in the field of archaeology is analysed in a 28-pages study (Chapter 7), with a survey of the numerous works concerned with this subject in the British Isles, continental Europe, and Northern America. It is clear that fossil insects provide a mass of information that are of the greatest interest for archaeologists, on topics as varied as human foods, type of dwellings, domestic life, sanitation conditions, modes of burial, etc. In fact the variety of information that can be derived from fossil insect assemblages in archaeological contexts seems unlimited. Chapters 8 to 11 comprise 88 pages in total. They are devo-ted to a worldwide overview of works concerned with Quaternary insect fossils, especially in Europe, Siberia, North America, and South America. This part is of great interest and should be very useful to all those Quaternarists that are wishing to be informed about all recent advances in palaeoentomological researches without it being necessary for them to go through the abundant literature devoted to the subject. Besides, as most works relating to Siberia are published in the Russian language, palaeoentomologists who are not familiar with that language will find here an easy source of information. As in the rest of the work the reading of these chapters is facilitated by numerous maps showing the geographical location of the sites cited and accompanied with corresponding bibliographical references presented in tables. After a short chapter of conclusions and an expose of future possible research lines (utilisation of the Mutual Climatic Range method for fossil insects assemblages outside Europe, isotopic analyses of insect cuticula, study of fossil DNA), the work ends with an important list of bibliographical references (625 titles) and an index. The

334

Quaternary Science Reviews: Volume 14

reader who is not familiar with the entomological and palaeoentomological vocabulaty will find also a glossary of 142 terms and an appendix with a list of all the arthropods that have been cited in the text (with the corresponding vernacular names). This welcome synthesis proposed by Elias is easily accessible and should therefore interest a large readership, not only among Quatemary experts or students but also among entomologists, biologists, archaeologists, geologists and biogeographers.

REFERENCES Atkinson, T.C., Briffa, K.R. and Coope, G.R. Seasonal temperatures in Britain during the last 22,000 years, reconstructed using beetle remains. Nature, 325,

587-592. Buckland, PC. and Coope, G.R. (1991). A Bibliography and Literature Review of Quaternary Entomology. J.R. Collis Publications, Department of Archaeology and Prehistory, University of Sheffield, 86 pp. Jones, R.L. and Keen, D.H. (1993). Pleistocene Environments in the British Isles. Chapman and Hall, London, 346 pp. Paulian, A. (1988). La biologie des ColtoptZres. Lechevalier, Paris, 720 pp.

Dictionary of Global Climate Change (2nd Edition), by W.J. Maunder, UCL Press, London, 1994, g14.95, ISBN 1-85728-284-1.

xxvi + 257 pp.,

The first edition of this book was published in 1992 and its antecedent, a provisional edition of what was called ‘The Climate Change Lexicon’, was compiled in 1990 so that it would be available to participants in the Second World Climate Conference. The aim of all these versions was to define precisely, terms that have been in use for many years but which have become ever more widespread in the academic and popular media since the possibility of global warming became more than mere speculation. Indeed, the many new developments that have occurred since the first edition was published is the reason why a new edition has been produced. Apart from two brief sections on sources of information and abbreviations and acronyms, the latter being a useful reference list, the dictionary comprises 257 pp. It begins with the term ‘abiotic’ and ends with ‘zooplankton’. In between there are approximately 1500 entries ranging from short phrases defining specific terms to short essays of about 1000 words. The brief but clear definitions of technical terms such as ‘bathometry’, ‘ecotone’ and ‘maximum thermometer’ will be particularly useful for students writing essays, reports and dissertations. Inevitably, there are terms which could have benefitted from more explanation. For example, ‘biodiversity’ is simply defined as “The diversity of species in a region” and ‘interglacials’ are defined as “The periods

between the glaciations of an ice age”. Both of these definitions are rather naive; in reality, both biodiversity and interglacials are much more complex than these definitions suggest. However, inevitably I am focusing on those terms with which I am particularly familiar; all readers and users of this dictionary will no doubt have their ‘party pieces’ and their quibbles as well as their priorities. The longer entries are generally succinct summaries of what I can only call ‘climate measuring and monitoring activities’, the organisations that undertake these activities and the political frameworks and policies that are necessary to implement them. These explanations are, for this reviewer as least, the strength of this dictionary. Whilst definitions of basic terms can be found in dictionaries of physical geography and environmental science, it is often difficult to find information on the way in which research into climate dynamics and climate change is organised and funded at national and international levels. Similarly, discussions on national and international policies on climate regulation and climate change often appear in government publications that are not always readily accessible. Maunder has achieved a great deal and provided a valuable service by bringing together an important body of information on these topics in one book. In particular, the sections on the ‘Rio Declaration on Environment and Development’, the ‘Global Climate Observing System (GCOS)‘, the ‘Climate Change Detection Project (CCDP)‘, the entries on the ‘Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’ (IPCC) and the entries on the various United Nations conferences (and there are many others) are both convenient and general-purpose abstracts for all those concerned with climate/environment issues. The one drawback, although it is remedied to a certain extent by the pre-dictionary section on sources of information, is that it is not obvious where to find further, more detailed information. Unless the publishers were to allow considerably more pagination, it would be difficult to provide a more comprehensive bibliography than is already given. Notwithstanding this, however, and in view of the fact that the book was published in 1994 there are few references that were published in 1993, the majority having been published in the 1990-l 992 period or earlier. There are a number of entries in this dictionary which would have benefitted markedly by the inclusion of diagrams, i.e. simple but explanatory black and white line drawings. Cases in point include the ‘carbon cycle’, ‘acid rain’, the Milankovitch theory/explanation of climatic change (alias ‘astronomical theory of climate change’ and ‘Earth’s orbital variations’) and the ‘general circulation of the atmosphere’. In addition, a diagram detailing the various layers of the atmosphere and their characteristics would have been a welcome asset. Such diagrams would be especially useful for student users of this dictionarY. Overall, this book is a welcome addition to the lexicon/dictionary range though there are, I suggest, some notable omissions. For example, there is little informa-