Ecology and classification of North American freshwater invertebrates /

This third edition (2nd ed., CH, Sep'01, 39-0312; 1st ed., 1991) ensures that this work will remain the most up-to-date and comprehensive information source on freshwater invertebrate animals in the US and Canada. Numerous color photographs and some diagrams now brighten more than half of the 22 chapters. Fifty coauthors contributed, a 35 percent increase from the second edition. Some tabular keys to identifying invertebrates are also more extensive than in previous versions. Except for a half-page list of selected sources at each chapter's end, the literature-cited sections are now relegated to the publisher's Web site (access requires registration). That saves considerable paper: the bibliography would have occupied 170 more pages, and the third edition is no larger than the second. Also new in this volume are introductory discussions of species concepts and their relevance to taxonomy, classification, and phylogeny and the importance of the last to understanding comparative biology of freshwater invertebrates, particularly those demonstrating remarkable reproductive and genetic traits. Only the chapter on their bryozoan hosts briefly discusses the Myxozoa, and the book omits some major advances (from 2007) in knowledge of the life history and phylogenetic status of these perhaps most bizarre of all freshwater invertebrates. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals. A. J. Kohn emeritus, University of Washington