Cephalopods are fast-moving, voracious predators, and can change colour with breath-taking rapidity. They range from the giant squid, the world's largest marine invertebrate, to species of only 2 cm in length. Inhabitants of most seas of the world, they are found from the surface to great depths. Most cephalopods have short lives yet their efficiency in capturing and consuming prey ensures rapid growth. These animals possess highly-developed nervous systems, large brains, elaborate senses, complex behaviour and are capable of learning. Many of these features are described and illustrated with line drawings and photomicrographs.

Surveying the night sky, a charming philosopher and his hostess, the Marquise, are considering thep ossibility of travelers from the moon. "What if they were skillful enough to navigate on the outer surface of our air, and from there, through their curiosity to see us, they angled for us like fish? Would that please you?" asks the philosopher. "Why not?" the Marquise replies. "As for me, I'd put myself into their nets of my own volition just to have the pleasure of seeing those who caught me."
In this imaginary conversation of three hundred years ago, readers can share the excitement of a new, extremely daring view of the uinverse. "Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds (Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes)," first published in 1686, is one of the best loved classics of the early French enlightenment. Through a series of informal dialogues that take place on successive evenings in the marquise's moonlit gardens, Fontenelle describes the new cosmology of the Copernican world view with matchles clarity, imagination, and wit. Moreover, he boldly makes his interlocutor a woman, inviting female participation in the almost exclusively male province of scientific discourse.
The popular Fontenelle lived through an entire century, from 1657 to 1757, and wrote prolifically. H. A. Hargreaves's fresh, appealing translation brings the author's masterpiece to new generations of readers, while the introduction by Nina Rattner Gelbart clearly demonstrates the importance of the "Conversations" for the history of science, of women, of literature, and of French civilization, and for the popularization of culture.

Longlisted for the Wainwright Prize Shortlisted for the Richard Jeffries Award The story of one woman's passion for glaciers As one of the world's leading glaciologists, Professor Jemma Wadham has devoted her career to the glaciers that cover one-tenth of the Earth's land surface. Today, however, these 'ice rivers' are in peril. High up in the Alps, Andes and Himalaya, once-indomitable glaciers are retreating; in Antarctica, meanwhile, thinning ice sheets are releasing meltwater to sensitive marine foodwebs, and may be unlocking vast quantities of methane stored deep beneath them. The potential consequences for humanity are almost unfathomable. Jemma's first encounter with a glacier, as a student, sparked her love of these icy landscapes. There is nowhere on Earth she feels more alive. Whether abseiling down crevasses, skidooing across frozen fjords, exploring ice caverns, or dodging polar bears - for a glaciologist, it's all in a day's work. Prompted by an illness that took her to the brink of death and back, in Ice Rivers Jemma recalls twenty-five years of expeditions around the globe, revealing why the glaciers mean so much to her - and what they should mean to us. As she guides us from the Alps to the Andes, the importance of the ice to crucial ecosystems and human livelihoods becomes clear - our lives are entwined with these coldest places on the planet. This is a memoir like no other: an eye-witness account by a top scientist at the frontline of the climate crisis, and an impassioned love letter to the glaciers that are her obsession.

Yet another Springer world-beater, this is the first ever book devoted to the chemical ecology of algae. It covers both marine and freshwater habitats and all types of algae, from seaweeds to phytoplankton. While the book emphasizes the ecological rather than chemical aspects of the field, it does include a unique introductory chapter that serves as a primer on algal natural products chemistry.

Ecologists have long struggled to predict features of ecological systems, such as the numbers and diversity of organisms. The wide range of body sizes in ecological communities, from tiny microbes to large animals and plants, is emerging as the key to prediction. Based on the relationship between body size and features such as biological rates, the physics of water and the amount of habitat available, we may be able to understand patterns of abundance and diversity, biogeography, interactions in food webs and the impact of fishing, adding up to a potential 'periodic table' for ecology. Remarkable progress on the unravelling, describing and modelling of aquatic food webs, revealing the fundamental role of body size, makes a book emphasising marine and freshwater ecosystems particularly apt. In this 2007 book, the importance of body size is examined at a range of scales that will be of interest to professional ecologists, from students to senior researchers.

Ecohydrology of Water-Controlled Ecosystems addresses the connections between the hydrologic cycle and plant ecosystems, with special emphasis on arid and semi-arid climates. This important topic is treated by building suitable mathematical models of the physics involved and then applying them to study the ecosystem structure and its response to rainfall and climate forcing in different parts of the world, including savannas, grasslands and forests. It investigates the vegetation response to water stress (drought), the hydrologic control on cycles of soil nutrients, and the dynamics of plant competition for water. The book also offers insights into processes closely related to soil moisture dynamics, such as soil-atmosphere interaction and soil gas emissions. This book will appeal to advanced students and researchers from a large range of disciplines, including environmental science, hydrology, ecology, earth science, civil and environmental engineering, agriculture and atmospheric science.

Fishes have evolved to colonise almost every type of aquatic habitat and today they are a hugely diverse group of over 25,000 species. The evolution of this great diversity of species has resulted in a myriad of solutions to the demands posed by the aquatic environment. Ecological and Environmental Physiology of Fishes presents a current and comprehensive overview of fish physiology to demonstrate how living fishes function in their environment. As with other books in the Series, the emphasis is on the unique physiological characteristics of the fish, but with applications to questions of broad relevance in physiological ecology. A preliminary chapter introduces the aquatic environment and gives a general description of fish biology, evolution, and taxonomy. Subsequent sections discuss the particular problems of living in water, life in extreme environments, techniques for studying fish ecophysiology, and future research directions.

Longlisted for the Wainwright Prize Shortlisted for the Richard Jeffries Award The story of one woman's passion for glaciers As one of the world's leading glaciologists, Professor Jemma Wadham has devoted her career to the glaciers that cover one-tenth of the Earth's land surface. Today, however, these 'ice rivers' are in peril. High up in the Alps, Andes and Himalaya, once-indomitable glaciers are retreating; in Antarctica, meanwhile, thinning ice sheets are releasing meltwater to sensitive marine foodwebs, and may be unlocking vast quantities of methane stored deep beneath them. The potential consequences for humanity are almost unfathomable. Jemma's first encounter with a glacier, as a student, sparked her love of these icy landscapes. There is nowhere on Earth she feels more alive. Whether abseiling down crevasses, skidooing across frozen fjords, exploring ice caverns, or dodging polar bears - for a glaciologist, it's all in a day's work. Prompted by an illness that took her to the brink of death and back, in Ice Rivers Jemma recalls twenty-five years of expeditions around the globe, revealing why the glaciers mean so much to her - and what they should mean to us. As she guides us from the Alps to the Andes, the importance of the ice to crucial ecosystems and human livelihoods becomes clear - our lives are entwined with these coldest places on the planet. This is a memoir like no other: an eye-witness account by a top scientist at the frontline of the climate crisis, and an impassioned love letter to the glaciers that are her obsession.

This book presents topical research from across the globe in the study of the biology, habitats and threats to aquatic animals. Topics discussed include the acoustic ecology of pinnipeds in polar habitats; the immunotoxicological reactivity of hemocytes of juvenile mudcrabs; the potential threat of genotoxic metals to marine mammal health; toxic contaminants in aquatic medium concerns and the role of bacteria in the chilled storage and cryopreservation of sperm in aquatic animals.

Aquatic toxicology is the study of the effects of manufactured chemicals and other anthropogenic and natural materials and activities on aquatic organisms at various levels of organization, from subcellular through individual organisms to communities and ecosystems. This book presents the latest research in this field from around the globe.

This book explores the sea and its meanings from ancient myths to contemporary geopolitics, from Atlantis to the Mediterranean migrant crisis. Richard Hamblyn traces a cultural and geographical journey from estuary to abyss, beginning with the topographies of the shoreline and ending with the likely futures of our maritime environments. Along the way, the sea becomes a site of work and endurance, of story and song, of language, leisure and longing. By considering the sea as both a physical and a cultural presence, this book shines new light upon it, and its indelible place in the human imagination.

Artificial habitats have been used for centuries to successfully modify environments for the benefit of Man. In the aquatic environment, the use of artificial habitat technologies is of growing interest worldwide. Opportunities exist in both developed and developing nations to apply these technologies in many areas, including classical scientific investigations of ecosystem structure and function, engineering advances in underwater technology, and fisheries and environmental management.
The applications of artificial habitat technologies are taking on ever greater economic, social, and environmental importance globally, not only in developed countries such as Japan where highly sophisticated technologies are used, but also in developing nations, where lower cost practices are in use. There is growing pressure to increase production, while at the same time preserve or enhance the environments and ecosystems surrounding fisheries.
This book provides a comprehensive review of the facts, issues, and global trends emerging regarding the use of artificial habitats in aquatic ecosystems. It presents the most recent scientific advances in ecology and engineering technologies related to the building of artificial habitats, and it also presents many of the fisheries management and socioeconomic and environmental issues.
Artificial Habitats for Marine and Freshwater Fisheries will be of interest to a broad audience including natural resource scientists, planners, and managers, particularly those interested in aquatic and fisheries science and management; organizations and individuals interested in commercial and recreational fishing; ecologists; environmental economists, engineers, lawyers, and social scientists; and geographers.
Key Features
* Presents a global scope
* Draws together, for the first time, disparate literature
* Contains contributions by authors in the United States and Japan
* Features engineering chapters that focus on Japanese advanced technology often not available to the English language audience

A biomarker is a biochemical, cellular, physiological or behavioral variation that can be measured in tissue or body fluid samples or at the level of whole organisms that provides evidence of exposure to and/or effects of one or more chemical pollutants or radiations. Based on the facts related to the existence of contaminant stressors, an understanding of chemical modes of toxicity can be incorporated with diagnostic markers of aquatic animal physiology to help understand the health status of aquatic organisms in the field. New approaches in functional genomics and bioinformatics can help discriminate individual chemicals, or groups of chemicals among complex mixtures that may contribute to adverse biological effects. By using these recent methodologies, it could be useful to shed light on the molecular evolution of the biomarkers, and which role and functionality can be better understood based on exploring the relative evolution pathways in several aquatic organisms. PhD students and scientists with interests on physiology, ecotoxicology, biochemistry, molecular biology, molecular evolution and aquatic science disciplines will find this book very useful, based on the concepts and the relative biomarkers study cases, analyzed from the evolutionary point of view.

In this text, the authors present current research in the study of the evolutionary history, ecological significance and effects on dietary consumption of shrimp. The topics include the biology, morphology and antiviral defence of penaeid shrimp (Crustacea: decapoda); shrimp (penaeus monodon) farming in the coastal areas of Bangladesh; three analytical methods that employ ion chromatography coupled with conductivity detection for the determination of sulphiting agents, polyphosphates and organic acids in shrimps; movement and habitat use by the abundant seagrass shrimp Phycomenes zostericola (Decapoda: palaemonidae); and the availability of brine shrimp bioassay as a screening technique of allelopathic compounds.

Most species of anurans require ponds for reproduction. This book discusses the attributes likely to influence a pond's suitability as a spawning site include factors such as vegetation, depth, water chemistry, presence of predators, hydroperiod and water chemistry. But in many landscapes, the availability of suitable ponds is limited. This book also discusses recreational and commercial pond usage in the south-eastern United States, which influences nutrient and fish production making the ecological role of shallow lakes and ponds among the most threatened habitats in the world. Also explored are lakes and ponds beyond the Earth, such as the dry lakebeds on Mars and active methane-ehtane ponds on Titan, and the behaviour of boundaries between gradient zone and convective zones in a salinity gradient solar pond.

Beginning systematically with the fundamentals, the fully-updated third edition of this popular graduate textbook provides an understanding of all the essential elements of marine optics. It explains the key role of light as a major factor in determining the operation and biological composition of aquatic ecosystems, and its scope ranges from the physics of light transmission within water, through the biochemistry and physiology of aquatic photosynthesis, to the ecological relationships that depend on the underwater light climate. This book also provides a valuable introduction to the remote sensing of the ocean from space, which is now recognized to be of great environmental significance due to its direct relevance to global warming. An important resource for graduate courses on marine optics, aquatic photosynthesis, or ocean remote sensing; and for aquatic scientists, both oceanographers and limnologists.

One of California's most remarkable wetlands, Suisun Marsh is the largest tidal marsh on the West Coast and a major feature of the San Francisco Estuary. This productive and unique habitat supports endemic species, is a nursery for native fishes, and is a vital link for migratory waterfowl. The 6,000-year-old marsh has been affected by human activity, and humans will continue to have significant impacts on the marsh as the sea level rises and cultural values shift in the century ahead. This study includes in-depth information about the ecological and human history of Suisun Marsh, its abiotic and biotic characteristics, agents of ecological change, and alternative futures facing this ecosystem.

In this book, the authors present topical research in the study of aquatic ecosystems of which there are two main types: marine ecosystems and freshwater ecosystems. Topics discussed include a change of biodiversity in subarctic freshwater ecosystems located in the northwest region of Russia; assemblages of zoosporic true fungi, heterotrophic straminipiles and plasmodiophorids in freshwater ecosystems; aquatic ecosystem health and the causes, effects and rehabilitation of the eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems.

Chemical and Biological Regulation of Aquatic Systems covers the fundamentals of chemical and microbial processes that control the quality of surface water. Topics discussed include the nature and environmental role of surface, complexation and redox reactions; fluxes in the water column and at sediment-water interface; bioavailability; intra- and extra-cellular processes; interactions of microbes with their environment; and microbial ecology. Basic principles are clearly explained and important examples are described in each case. For each environmental process, the respective roles of chemistry and biology are explained. The book features 600 references, 140 figures, and 55 tables. It's an excellent text for students in environmental sciences, researchers involved in quality control, and government and industry professionals who need to learn the fundamentals of an integrated approach to aquatic systems.

Part A: THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND TRIBUTARIES NORTH OF ST.

LOUIS.

Upper Mississippi River.

Lower Mississippi—Atchafalaya River.

Main Stem—Missouri River.

Kansas River.

This volume is a record of the proceedings of the IXth International Rotifer Symposium, which was held in Khon Kaen, Thailand, on January 16-23, 2000. It contains reviews and research papers dealing with diverse aspects of scientific research related to Rotifera and their ecology. Some of the topics addressed are: taxonomy and zoogeography, ecology, phylogeny and evolution, physiology, biochemistry and population genetics, aquaculture, and ecotoxicology. This book contains a compilation of contemporary rotifer-related research, and is the eighth of a series of rotifer symposium proceedings published in "Developments of Hydrobiology". This update of Rotifera studies should be of great interest to invertebrate zoologists, hydrobiologists, ecologists, and aquaculturists, particularly those interested in freshwater habitats.