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Plankton: A Guide to their Ecology and Monitoring for Water Quality
Article in Journal of Plankton Research · February 2010
DOI: 10.1093/plankt/fbp102
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JOURNAL OF PLANKTON RESEARCH
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BOOK REVIEW
Plankton: A Guide to their Ecology and Monitoring for Water Quality. Edited by Ian M. Suthers and
David Rissik, CSIRO Publishing (Australia). 272 pp. ISBN: 9780643090583. AU $49.95
environmental indicator. Chapter 3 presents selected
real-life case studies, mainly from Australian coastal
waters, which the editors use to illustrate how plankton
can be used for monitoring water quality.
Consistent and rigorous methodological approaches
and appropriate sampling design are key to the success
of any environmental survey. Thus, Chapter 4 gives
guidelines on the best practice in sampling and monitoring, detailing how to design, implement and conduct
meaningful phytoplankton and zooplankton monitoring
programs in both marine and freshwater habitats.
Accurate identification of plankton, particularly
harmful species, can be difficult because many of these
organisms are very small requiring skilful microscopy
and familiarity with the widely scattered taxonomic literature. Therefore, Chapters 5 – 8, defined by the
editors as the “core section” of this book, provide a
comprehensive overview of the major freshwater and
coastal marine phytoplankton and zooplankton
groups.
The book closes with Chapter 9 in which the editors
consider how the use of mathematical models could aid
in forecasting harmful plankton blooms and outbreaks.
As the authors point out, the output of most of these
sophisticated mathematical models is, however, often
controversial because such models cannot replicate the
complexity of an ecosystem and it depends on the
numerical approach used. They are also difficult to
implement requiring mathematical skills very often
beyond the reach of many scientists let alone water
managers and government officials. Therefore, something which I think is lacking in this book are examples
of, simpler but nevertheless useful, numerical methods
traditionally employed to investigate changes in community structure and diversity such as biological indices
(e.g. Shannon – Wiener index, Pielou’s index) and multivariate analysis.
In a book of such wide scope, it is difficult to remain
consistent and accurate and this work is not an
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Plankton is of great ecological and economic importance as it is at the base of aquatic food webs and fisheries. Nonetheless, several species of phytoplankton and
jellyfish represent a hazard to human health and
marine life, as they produce potent toxins or cause
other noxious effects, such as anoxia and clogging of
fish gills. Over the past century, reports of harmful
plankton increases have become more frequent.
Although this may be in part attributable to greater
awareness of the public and attention from the media, it
seems that this increase is real and its cost to the fishing
and tourism industry amounts to many millions of
dollars per year world-wide. To forecast outbursts of
harmful plankton, make plans to avoid their occurrence
or control their impact, requires a broad knowledge of
the life cycles, ecology and behaviour of these organisms, the ecosystems in which they flourish, and the
chemical, physical and biological factors that affect their
abundance.
To capture the complexity of the plankton within a
single book is a difficult and daunting task. There are,
in fact, generally very few published books on the
ecology of plankton and none to my knowledge that
deal with the use of plankton for water quality monitoring. Thus, this concise introductory book edited by Ian
M. Suthers and David Rissik represents a useful
addition to the existing literature by integrating general
aspects of the ecology and taxonomy of key species of
marine and freshwater plankton, with technical
approaches and methodological guidelines on water
quality monitoring.
The different chapters draw from the knowledge and
experience of a team composed chiefly of Australian
scientists and government environmental managers.
The book opens with a general introduction on the
importance of plankton and the aims of the book. In
Chapter 2, the editors provide a concise summary of
the ecology of plankton, its associated environmental
and water quality issues and its relevance as an
JOURNAL OF PLANKTON RESEARCH
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There are also minor points, which would benefit
from a thorough editorial revision, starting with the
layout of the table of contents [e.g. compare headings
5.4 Bacillariophyceae (diatoms) and 6.2 Diatoms
(Division Bacillariophyceae)]. The placement and the
use of the figures is also not always appropriate; Figs
6.1, 6.2 and 6.5 representing marine phytoplankton
are in Chapter 5 which deals with freshwater phytoplankton, whereas Figs 6.3 and 6.4 are found in
Chapter 6. Finally, and yet importantly for the sake of
consistency, it would be appropriate to substitute Figs
4.8 and 4.9 (on page 100 and 101) showing a book
on insect identification in the background with one
illustrating pictures of plankton.
Overall, one of the main strengths of this book is its
pragmatic and hands-on approach to problem-solving;
there are many useful “box” sections throughout the
book, which give interesting insights on selected topics
and provide practical applications, ranging from the
simple calculation of the volume of water filtered by a
plankton net, to principles of statistical inferences. The
plain language used throughout the book also makes it
accessible to a wider audience ranging from “plankton
novices”, to non-specialists, managers and students. All
in all this represents a nice and concise introductory
book, which will be certainly useful to environmental
and water quality managers. Nevertheless, the issues
highlighted above will need to be addressed in an errata
section and eliminated in any subsequent editions for
this work to be considered a relevant reference text
262
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Claudia Castellani
Sir Alistair Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science (SAHFOS)
The Laboratory, Citadel Hill,
Plymouth PL1 2PB
UK
cxc@sahfos.ac.uk
doi:10.1093/plankt/fbp102
Advance Access publication November 6, 2009
available online at www.plankt.oxfordjournals.org
Downloaded from plankt.oxfordjournals.org at Bangor University on December 18, 2010
exception. As a result, the book is tainted by several
inaccuracies and inconsistencies throughout. Thus,
below I provide some comments which I think will be
helpful for a future a revision and to those interested in
this work. On page 65, the “cyclopoid” copepod
Oithona spp. has been erroneously reported as a “calanoid” copepod. A number of organisms illustrated in
Chapter 8 have been misidentified; for instance, on
page 186, Fig. 8.3B, the “phyllosoma” larval stage of
the lobster has been misreported as the “pueurulus”
stage, which is the settling larval stage, resembling the
adult. Again, on page 204, Fig. 8.8, the specimen indicated by “I3” is not an egg mass but it is the nectophore (i.e. the swimming organ) of a siphonophore.
The captions of the figures in some of these chapters
have missing information and present some inconsistencies. For instance, the tintinnid in C6 Fig 8.8, page 204
does not appear in the caption and the units of the
scale bar are missing. The caption of Fig. 8.1 on page
182 is confusing and specimens here have also been
misidentified; some of the specimens indicated by the
letter “B” are not hyperids but calanoid copepods. In
the same figure, the letter “A” indicates “calanoid and
cyclopoid copepods”, whereas the letter “F”only “cyclopoid copepods”and the letters “H” and “K” are both
used to indicate polychaete larvae. In several parts of
the book (i.e. in the text of page 190 and in the box 8.2
on page 193), it is stated that copepods go through six
copepodites moults before reaching the adult stage,
whereas in reality the 6th copepodite is the adult stage.
Other editorial inconsistencies are found on page 203
where it is stated that Noctiluca is “entirely carnivorous”
whereas the following sentence reports that “its preferred prey are diatoms” (i.e. phytoplankton).
Inevitably, the presence of many contributing
authors also gives rise to duplication of information
and differences in writing style. The separation of
marine and freshwater phytoplankton and zooplankton
into four different chapters has resulted in annoying
repetitions, as there are elements belonging to these
plankton which are common to both environments.
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