Global patterns : climate, vegetation, and soils /

Climate, vegetation, and soils are a long-recognized system of covariation. Climate is considered the independent variable, but to his credit, Akin takes the geographic point of view that human activities are a primary modifier of the natural landscape. Emphasis is on freshwater resources and the hydrologic cycle, rather than on energy budgets. Contrary to the synthesis implied by the title, early vegetation-based climatic taxonomies (e.g., Koppen) are discarded in favor of classification based on physical measurements (e.g., Trewartha). The history of climatic changes, from the origin of life to modern times, is well reviewed, but the discussion of the greenhouse effect is brief and simplistic. Ecological plant geography, the second of these covariant systems, is presented completely within the assumptions of a vegetative succession that leads to a unique climate-determined climax as conceived by Frederic Clements (although he is not here credited). The historical geography of the Danish heath is used as a paradigm for human vegetation management. Discussion of the physiological basis for plant-environment interaction is several decades out of date. The third element, soils, might well be a completely separate text on the structure, development, and chemistry of soils, and includes an overwhelming amount of uncoordinated taxonomic detail. Someone may eventually make an elegant synthesis of these complex elements of the biosphere, but this text isolates rather than integrates. The book is relatively free of errors, but there is no way to display, for example, 45 soil suborders on a world map that is squeezed onto one 6 x 9-inch page. Advanced undergraduates and up. -R. S. Platt Jr., The Ohio State University