J. T. Carlton (eds): The Light and Smith Manual: Intertidal invertebrates from Central California to Oregon, 4th edition

Abstract

This book is a manual for the zoological study of intertidal invertebrates. This manual was originally created in 1941 as a class syllabus for undergraduate students in invertebrate zoology. Now in the 4th edition, the number of authors has increased from 22 (2nd edition, 1954) to 120 and the study area has been expanded as well, covering Point Conception to the Oregon–Washington border. The improvements, including newly added information, in this manual serve as a good guide not only for students but also for professional natural scientists. This manual is composed of two parts. The first part, with six chapters, is a general introduction to field study and intertidal invertebrate animals. It deals with the environmental characteristics of intertidal habitats and their effects on the life of invertebrates; biogeography in this area; survey and processing methods of each group of invertebrates; and recent topics such as molecular identification and introduced species. It is remarkable that every chapter has specific examples of studies conducted in the study area dealing not only with environmental characteristics of each habitat or biogeography, but also with molecular studies. The second part consists of taxonomic accounts introducing the taxonomical position of each phylum, morphological keys for identification of species, genus, family or subclass, and species list. It introduces 31 phyla from Protista to Chordata. This part includes fine illustrations or black and white photographs of the species collected from the study area. They illustrate their lives in the field effectively. Each chapter also explains the basic body structure, ecology, and techniques for studies such as sampling, treatment, and identification of the phylum. It is notable that much valuable information is accumulated in a subset of the Pacific Coast of North America. These taxonomic accounts will assist not only beginners in this field but also zoologists who work on invertebrate animals in other areas of the world. For community ecologists working on intertidal benthic organisms, the study area represents a special one because it is where most contributive studies for setting up the principle of community organization were conducted. Menge, Lubchenco, Sutherland, and many other ecologists contributed experimental studies to figure out the determining factor of community structure on the coast of Oregon. They proved that the predators that forage on the dominant species in the prey community have a strong influence on the community because they can moderate the competition for space and some of them can determine their vertical distribution. This effect is known as the top– down effect. These ecologists also stressed that the strength and direction of the top–down effect is changed by environmental conditions. Roughgarden brought forward supply-side ecology based on the studies conducted in the area between Point Conception and San Francisco. He pointed out that the structure of the intertidal benthic community is organized not only by environmental factors and species interactions at the adult benthic stage but also by the supply of larvae. Since the supply of planktonic larvae is governed by conditions and events in the offshore waters, his model coordinated ecology and oceanography. By reading this manual, we can clearly understand that these many T. Yamamoto (&) Faculty of Fisheries, Kagoshima University, 4-50-20 Shimoarata, Kagoshima 890-0056, Japan e-mail: yamamoto@fish.kagoshima-u.ac.jp