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Oceanography and marine biology. An Annual Review
Marine PollutionBulletin year moratorium to be introduced for commercial whaling. Thus an international mandate had been established for the conservation measures and yet, despite this, the populations of some species of whale continued to decline. Furthermore, at the last meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna, fin, sei and sperm whales were all included in the Convention's most endangered category of species. Despite the recommendations of this august body, IWC members are still commercially hunting two of these three species and the third (the sperm whale) is subject to a special meeting of the commission in March. Recently, many more nations have joined the IWC, reflecting the more widespread international concern for the whales. This has resulted in a shift in bias within the Commission towards conservation. This year there are a record number of members in the commission and, for the first time ever and 10 years after the UN resolution, there is a real chance of the commercial moratorium being realised. (3) The Scottish grey seal controversy as well as Greenpeace's history of involvement with it, including the success in getting the proposed government management scheme shelved in 1978, is severely misrepresented. The current world population of grey seals is only 110 000-120 000 and is expanding at the rate of about 6°7o per annum. Two-thirds of these animals live and breed around the shores of the United Kingdom, giving this country an international responsibility to look after this relatively scarce species. Since 1962 a government-licensed
Oceanography and Marine Biology Oceanography and Marine Biology. An Annual Review, Vol. 19, edited by Margaret Barnes, Aberdeen University Press, Aberdeen, 1981. 655 pp. ISBN 0 08 028439 6. Price: £39.00. Few, if any, marine biologists will not welcome Volume 19 of the Annual Review founded by the late Harold Barnes, and faithfully and ably continued by his wife as Editor. The present volume comprises ten papers, of varying length and ranging over a wide field. The longest (146 pp.), by G. M. Branch, is a valuable review of modern knowledge of the biology of the 'true' limpets, their adaptations to physical factors, their interactions with other organisms and energy flow. Taxonomy and morphology in general are deliberately omitted. Another of the longer papers (94 pp.) was, for this reviewer at least, a most interesting account of the ecology of nudibranch molluscs, especially in the British fauna, by Christopher D. Todd. Going to the other side of the world are two papers, the first one by B. F. Phillips (30 pp.), on 142
local kill has taken place, involving up to 2000 pups on Orkney and the Hebrides (primarily the former). In 1981 ten licences were issued and bad weather meant that at least two of these became redundant. The local significance of this kill is thus very small. In 1977 the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland attempted to introduce a management plan that would, over six years, have halved the British population of grey seals. The contracted Norwegian killers were deterred by bad weather that year but returned in 1978 to begin the slaughter. Greenpeace intervened and prevented the management plan's enactment and it has remained on the shelf ever since. Thus, describing the plan as a 'modest cull' that posed 'no threat to the burgeoning seal population but might have helped the local situation' was a dangerous fallacy. The seals are already living under stress from a reduced food source resulting from man's overfishing as well as the massive threat of a major oil spill. There is also evidence to suggest that other forms of marine pollution are currently affecting the seals' reproduction rates. The annual kill is promoted not by the large industrial fishery, nor by the Orcadians, but by the salmon fishing interests who would be better advised to examine the overfishing of this species by man at various stages of their migration.
Greenpeace Limited, 36 Graham Street, London N1 8LL, UK
M A R K GLO VER
the planktonic life of the Western Rock Lobster in relation to the circulation of the S. E. Indian Ocean. A longer one (70 pp.), by Paul N. Sund, Maurice Blackburn and Francis Williams, on Tunas and their environment in the Pacific Ocean, is a follow-up to a paper prepared for this same series by Maurice Blackburn some fifteen years ago. It will be welcomed, I think, by fishery workers over a much broader field for gathering together so much of the recent information - and drawing attention when necessary to its lack - concerning one of the world's major groups of fish. Of medium length (54 pp.) is a paper by Bruno P. Kremer, on aspects of carbon metabolism in the marine macroalgae. It summarizes recent trends, with duly modest acknowledgements of the likelihood of significant omissions. Even shorter papers concern (a) a continuation of an earlier review in this series by Charles C. Davis, on mechanisms of hatching in aquatic invertebrate eggs (30 pp.), (b) yet another 'second' paper, by J. D. M. Gordon, completing a review of the fish populations of the West of Scotland Shelf (38 pp.), and (c) one by George D. Grice and Nancy H. Marcus on dormant eggs of marine copepods (16 pp.). Although relatively short (24 pp.) there is a fascinating detective story by Z. Kabata and Ju-Shey Ho, on the origin and dispersal of Hake, Merluccius, as indicated by its copepod parasites. This seems effectively to dispose of the
Volume 13/Number4/April 1982 thesis of L. Szidat, also based on parasite fauna, that Merluccius originated in an area of the Behring Sea. The authors convincingly propose an old world origin, near the tip of Eocene Greenland, with a penetration of the Pacific via early gaps in the Panamanian Isthmus, and a final suggestion for the arrival of a stock off New Zealand. Lastly, in part because it is the last in this volume, but also because it is far from least, is a valuable survey of techniques of analysis of variance, with special reference to marine biology and ecology, by A. J. Underwood (94 pp.); I am tempted to wish this could have been available long ago, for myself as well as others. In particular, it examines in fair detail the analyses found in some 150 papers published over 1969-1978 in major marine journals, and discusses the effects of errors of various kinds found in interpretations of experimentally derived data (without direct attribution). Strikingly, at the end of his introduction, the author is impelled to stress that "the class of analyses originally developed by Fisher (1925, 1935) needs some introduction", as they are "the single most important class of analyses available for current use in modern experimental biology". How amazing that this should still be necessary, after some 50 years since they were first introduced (to me among others) and yet how true, probably, even now! SIR CYRIL LUCAS
pollution studies. It focuses on comparing 'clean' subareas with patches where pollution is present or suspected, and in this context "only the diversity approach is suggested". While this may permit the identification of differences, the crucial problem of how to separate natural from pollutioninduced changes is ignored. In general, the impression is given that a major survey will be needed to answer the questions likely to arise. In view of the labour-intensive nature of such work, this impression may do a disservice to benthos studies in the present cost-conscious climate. It would have been helpful to discuss short-cuts and to indicate how little rather than how much work is needed. The informed reader will feel that this publication is out of date, and a glance at the reference list confirms that impression. Of 60 references, one is from 1981 (on fish) and two from 1978 (on plankton): all the remainder are dated 1976 or earlier, ldeed, much of the material is derived from comparable manuals produced some ten years ago, so the volume ignores all the improvements and refinements which have been introduced in recent years in the whole field of benthic sampling. Further, it takes no account of the intensive international discussions on biological effects of pollution which have resulted in many publications in the past few years, not least on how best to use community data and how to apply diversity measurements. It is to be hoped that the Mediterranean workers to whom this manual is addressed will have access also to those more recent texts. A. D. McINTYRE
Dated Methods Manual of Methods in A quatic Environmental Research. Part 8-Ecological Assessment of Pollution Effects. J. Stirn (Guidelines for the FAO (GFCM)/UNEP Joint Coordinated Project on Pollution in the Mediterranean) FAOFish. Tech. Pap., (209), 70 pp. FAO, Rome, 1981.
Desalinating Seawater
This manual deals with the marine environment and sets out to describe (for participants in the F A O / U N E P Joint Coordinated Project on Pollution in the Mediterranean) methods for "the assessment of pollution-induced modifications as shown by the structure and particularly in changed diversity, of communities". It argues that, in this context, benthos is the most useful environmental component to study, and it concentrates on the macrobenthos of the euphotic zone. Microbenthos is not included and for meiobenthos only total abundance, dominant taxa and biomass are covered. An introductory chapter on ecosystem theory is based largely on the 1971 Odum textbook and a short final chapter deals with plankton, but chapter 2, the bulk of the publication, is concerned with benthic investigations. It begins with a short account of zonation in the Mediterranean, and a discussion of the design of sampling programmes. This is followed by the longest section in the volume, giving an account of methods for sampling and processing the benthos of hard and soft bottoms including descriptions of equipment, advice on treatment and preservation of samples, and on the processing of data. The sediments themselves are dealt with in a couple of pages - perhaps too briefly in view of their relevance. Unfortunately, the manual fails to come fully to grips with the central question of how best to use benthos in
In the Foreword of this volume the Editor claims to have included practically all US patents concerned with reverse osmosis registered between October 1962 and April 1981. A number of these are of foreign origin, predominantly French. The book begins with a very clear and concise outline of the principles of reverse osmosis and details the four main types of module in use. This section also includes some very useful information on capital, operating and total water costs which are then presented in graph form plotted against a range of plant capacities. The content of the book is almost entirely taken directly from descriptions supplied to the U.S. Patent Office in support of applications. These descriptions have been edited to eradicate most of the legal phraseology to make for easier reading and understanding. However, one particular Patent Attorney's jargon does show through repeatedly. Nevertheless, some of the texts are tedious and convoluted in the extreme and there are a number of minor discrepancies in both descriptive matter and quoted figures. A very large proportion of the pat~ms quOted co~,et the manufacture, heat treatment and testing of membrane materials formed from both natural and synthetic substances. Figures are quoted for output and percentage salt rejection of these membranes. It would have been
Desalination of Seawater by Reverse Osmosis, edited by Jeanette Scott. Noyes Data Corporation, Park Ridge, N.J., 1981. 430 pp. ISBN 0-8155-0837-9. Price $39.00.
143
Oceanography and Marine Biology Oceanography and Marine Biology. An Annual Review, Vol. 19, edited by Margaret Barnes, Aberdeen University Press, Aberdeen, 1981. 655 pp. ISBN 0 08 028439 6. Price: £39.00. Few, if any, marine biologists will not welcome Volume 19 of the Annual Review founded by the late Harold Barnes, and faithfully and ably continued by his wife as Editor. The present volume comprises ten papers, of varying length and ranging over a wide field. The longest (146 pp.), by G. M. Branch, is a valuable review of modern knowledge of the biology of the 'true' limpets, their adaptations to physical factors, their interactions with other organisms and energy flow. Taxonomy and morphology in general are deliberately omitted. Another of the longer papers (94 pp.) was, for this reviewer at least, a most interesting account of the ecology of nudibranch molluscs, especially in the British fauna, by Christopher D. Todd. Going to the other side of the world are two papers, the first one by B. F. Phillips (30 pp.), on 142
local kill has taken place, involving up to 2000 pups on Orkney and the Hebrides (primarily the former). In 1981 ten licences were issued and bad weather meant that at least two of these became redundant. The local significance of this kill is thus very small. In 1977 the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland attempted to introduce a management plan that would, over six years, have halved the British population of grey seals. The contracted Norwegian killers were deterred by bad weather that year but returned in 1978 to begin the slaughter. Greenpeace intervened and prevented the management plan's enactment and it has remained on the shelf ever since. Thus, describing the plan as a 'modest cull' that posed 'no threat to the burgeoning seal population but might have helped the local situation' was a dangerous fallacy. The seals are already living under stress from a reduced food source resulting from man's overfishing as well as the massive threat of a major oil spill. There is also evidence to suggest that other forms of marine pollution are currently affecting the seals' reproduction rates. The annual kill is promoted not by the large industrial fishery, nor by the Orcadians, but by the salmon fishing interests who would be better advised to examine the overfishing of this species by man at various stages of their migration.
Greenpeace Limited, 36 Graham Street, London N1 8LL, UK
M A R K GLO VER
the planktonic life of the Western Rock Lobster in relation to the circulation of the S. E. Indian Ocean. A longer one (70 pp.), by Paul N. Sund, Maurice Blackburn and Francis Williams, on Tunas and their environment in the Pacific Ocean, is a follow-up to a paper prepared for this same series by Maurice Blackburn some fifteen years ago. It will be welcomed, I think, by fishery workers over a much broader field for gathering together so much of the recent information - and drawing attention when necessary to its lack - concerning one of the world's major groups of fish. Of medium length (54 pp.) is a paper by Bruno P. Kremer, on aspects of carbon metabolism in the marine macroalgae. It summarizes recent trends, with duly modest acknowledgements of the likelihood of significant omissions. Even shorter papers concern (a) a continuation of an earlier review in this series by Charles C. Davis, on mechanisms of hatching in aquatic invertebrate eggs (30 pp.), (b) yet another 'second' paper, by J. D. M. Gordon, completing a review of the fish populations of the West of Scotland Shelf (38 pp.), and (c) one by George D. Grice and Nancy H. Marcus on dormant eggs of marine copepods (16 pp.). Although relatively short (24 pp.) there is a fascinating detective story by Z. Kabata and Ju-Shey Ho, on the origin and dispersal of Hake, Merluccius, as indicated by its copepod parasites. This seems effectively to dispose of the
Volume 13/Number4/April 1982 thesis of L. Szidat, also based on parasite fauna, that Merluccius originated in an area of the Behring Sea. The authors convincingly propose an old world origin, near the tip of Eocene Greenland, with a penetration of the Pacific via early gaps in the Panamanian Isthmus, and a final suggestion for the arrival of a stock off New Zealand. Lastly, in part because it is the last in this volume, but also because it is far from least, is a valuable survey of techniques of analysis of variance, with special reference to marine biology and ecology, by A. J. Underwood (94 pp.); I am tempted to wish this could have been available long ago, for myself as well as others. In particular, it examines in fair detail the analyses found in some 150 papers published over 1969-1978 in major marine journals, and discusses the effects of errors of various kinds found in interpretations of experimentally derived data (without direct attribution). Strikingly, at the end of his introduction, the author is impelled to stress that "the class of analyses originally developed by Fisher (1925, 1935) needs some introduction", as they are "the single most important class of analyses available for current use in modern experimental biology". How amazing that this should still be necessary, after some 50 years since they were first introduced (to me among others) and yet how true, probably, even now! SIR CYRIL LUCAS
pollution studies. It focuses on comparing 'clean' subareas with patches where pollution is present or suspected, and in this context "only the diversity approach is suggested". While this may permit the identification of differences, the crucial problem of how to separate natural from pollutioninduced changes is ignored. In general, the impression is given that a major survey will be needed to answer the questions likely to arise. In view of the labour-intensive nature of such work, this impression may do a disservice to benthos studies in the present cost-conscious climate. It would have been helpful to discuss short-cuts and to indicate how little rather than how much work is needed. The informed reader will feel that this publication is out of date, and a glance at the reference list confirms that impression. Of 60 references, one is from 1981 (on fish) and two from 1978 (on plankton): all the remainder are dated 1976 or earlier, ldeed, much of the material is derived from comparable manuals produced some ten years ago, so the volume ignores all the improvements and refinements which have been introduced in recent years in the whole field of benthic sampling. Further, it takes no account of the intensive international discussions on biological effects of pollution which have resulted in many publications in the past few years, not least on how best to use community data and how to apply diversity measurements. It is to be hoped that the Mediterranean workers to whom this manual is addressed will have access also to those more recent texts. A. D. McINTYRE
Dated Methods Manual of Methods in A quatic Environmental Research. Part 8-Ecological Assessment of Pollution Effects. J. Stirn (Guidelines for the FAO (GFCM)/UNEP Joint Coordinated Project on Pollution in the Mediterranean) FAOFish. Tech. Pap., (209), 70 pp. FAO, Rome, 1981.
Desalinating Seawater
This manual deals with the marine environment and sets out to describe (for participants in the F A O / U N E P Joint Coordinated Project on Pollution in the Mediterranean) methods for "the assessment of pollution-induced modifications as shown by the structure and particularly in changed diversity, of communities". It argues that, in this context, benthos is the most useful environmental component to study, and it concentrates on the macrobenthos of the euphotic zone. Microbenthos is not included and for meiobenthos only total abundance, dominant taxa and biomass are covered. An introductory chapter on ecosystem theory is based largely on the 1971 Odum textbook and a short final chapter deals with plankton, but chapter 2, the bulk of the publication, is concerned with benthic investigations. It begins with a short account of zonation in the Mediterranean, and a discussion of the design of sampling programmes. This is followed by the longest section in the volume, giving an account of methods for sampling and processing the benthos of hard and soft bottoms including descriptions of equipment, advice on treatment and preservation of samples, and on the processing of data. The sediments themselves are dealt with in a couple of pages - perhaps too briefly in view of their relevance. Unfortunately, the manual fails to come fully to grips with the central question of how best to use benthos in
In the Foreword of this volume the Editor claims to have included practically all US patents concerned with reverse osmosis registered between October 1962 and April 1981. A number of these are of foreign origin, predominantly French. The book begins with a very clear and concise outline of the principles of reverse osmosis and details the four main types of module in use. This section also includes some very useful information on capital, operating and total water costs which are then presented in graph form plotted against a range of plant capacities. The content of the book is almost entirely taken directly from descriptions supplied to the U.S. Patent Office in support of applications. These descriptions have been edited to eradicate most of the legal phraseology to make for easier reading and understanding. However, one particular Patent Attorney's jargon does show through repeatedly. Nevertheless, some of the texts are tedious and convoluted in the extreme and there are a number of minor discrepancies in both descriptive matter and quoted figures. A very large proportion of the pat~ms quOted co~,et the manufacture, heat treatment and testing of membrane materials formed from both natural and synthetic substances. Figures are quoted for output and percentage salt rejection of these membranes. It would have been
Desalination of Seawater by Reverse Osmosis, edited by Jeanette Scott. Noyes Data Corporation, Park Ridge, N.J., 1981. 430 pp. ISBN 0-8155-0837-9. Price $39.00.
143