Book Review
Biology of the Southern Ocean G.A. Knox CRC Press (Taylor & Francis Group) , 2nd Edition , 2006 ; 621 pp. ISBN 0-8493-3394-6 . Hard-cover: £99.00 (149.00 Euro )
Antarctica can be considered both a continent and an ocean, the Southern Ocean. The continent, in fact, is deeply linked to the vast surrounding ocean, which supports an incredibly rich and unique array of life ranging from bacteria and microscopic pelagic plants to the largest animals on earth, whales. Research in the Terra Australis Incognita, more than in other regions has been marked by ‘epochal’ dates and has been framed, since its beginning, within the context of international scientific cooperation, exchange and feedback. This was mainly conducted under the supervision of the Scientific Committee of Antarctic Research (SCAR), an international scientific body, which plays a leading role in the conservation of Antarctic ecosystems. After a pioneering phase of exploration and data acquisition in the early 20th century, the first epochal date for Antarctic research is surely the International Geographical Year 1957–1958, known as the Polar Year. This period represents the beginning of modern investigation in this area. That date was followed by the Antarctic Treaty and the SCAR (1961), along with the opening of the majority of the permanent scientific bases all around the continent during the 1960s. This year (2007/2008) we further have a International Polar Year (IPY), 50 years after the first one in 1957. Various national and international cruises and meetings have been organized on the occasion of the IPY, and considerable global attention will be given to Polar Regions during this period. The publication date of the book reviewed here, ‘Biology of the Southern Ocean’, is not haphazard – its international resonance and audience will be surely enhanced in the IPY.
The book, which celebrates its second edition (the first was in 1993), represents a unique, single-author synthesis of the current and updated knowledge on various aspects of the biology of the Southern Ocean. As a matter of fact, over the last 10–15 years in particular, Antarctic research has seen a tremendous development of international cooperation. Several scientific programmes have focused on phenomena and processes with high global relevance and large-scale implications in which Antarctica and the Southern Ocean play a key role. Many of the results generated by these programmes have deeply changed our perception and knowledge about the structure and functioning of Southern Ocean-Antarctic ecosystems, and have dramatically modified most of the previous views and paradigms of Antarctic marine biology and ecology. These new results and data deserve an update and have been conscientiously addressed by the author in this second edition, which contains three additional chapters and about 200 pages more than the original publication. The book treats various topics of Antarctic marine sciences, which have experienced recent advances and evolved new views. Examples include biodiversity patterns along latitudinal gradients, climate change influences on the biota (e.g. UV radiation, ‘El Nino’ effects), functioning of the pelagic food web, along with new insights gained by iron fertilization experiments, the flora and fauna living inside the sea ice (sympagic) and of the ice-water edges including the continental ice-shelves, the role of physical disturbance by iceberg scouring in shaping benthic communities, the origin of Antarctic organisms including their relationships with deep-sea biota, and human influence and impact on the environment.
The book consists of 21 chapters, with the first dedicated to the physical and chemical oceanography of the Southern Ocean. Chapters 2–12 are devoted to synthesizing the main patterns of diversity, distribution and ecology of living organisms, from phytoplankton and the sea-ice community to seals, whales and marine birds. Specific chapters are dedicated to benthic communities and those associated with the fast-ice, pack-ice and shelf ice. In each of these chapters, the first paragraphs describe the species composition and main distribution, zonation and biogeographical patterns of the assemblages, followed by more structural aspects (abundance, biomass) and then by functional features and the main biological and ecological processes (life-cycle strategies, ecophysiology, production, dynamics of growth). Chapters 13–15 treat ecological processes linked to the ice dynamics at the ice-water edges, ecosystem dynamics, food webs and decomposition processes. The following six chapters examine resource management and the problems of environmental changes as a result of global warming, UV radiation, resource exploitation and, last but not least, the impact of human activities. Some of these latter chapters, which were not in the previous edition, reflect the role and influence of global change on the Antarctic environment. Even introduced species have been documented in this environment, and there is increasing concern and awareness of the human influence on this last pristine region on the Earth. An interesting and useful synthesis is given at the end of the book in a short Epilogue, where the author lists a series of previous ‘old’ views and paradigms of Antarctic biology, and highlights the new, current ones.
The book is written for a relatively large audience ranging from graduate students, for whom each chapter offers a high-level introduction to a specific topic related to the Antarctic environment and organisms, to specialists who are interested in a synthetic and updated overview. Although highly specialized and focused on Antarctic research, many chapters can be useful for comparisons with other habitats or geographic areas, as well as of course with the Northern hemisphere polar region. The book is filled with figures, diagrams, graphs, tables and schemes, which can be useful for seminar and lecture preparation. The reference list consists of 75 pages and more than 2800 updated citations, which are at the end of the book.
Reflecting the single-author nature of this synthesis, not all the topics have been treated in the same detail and with the same focus that individual specialists might have presented. A case is the chapter ‘Benthic communities’ (I am a benthic ecologist). While data from some regions have been considered and are well synthesized in dedicated paragraphs (the Weddell Sea and McMurdo Sound), other regions for which the same amount of data and information are available, (e.g. Admiralty Bay at King George Island in the South Shetlands, or Terra Nova Bay in the Ross Sea) have not received the same attention. Another minor shortcoming of this volume is that the names of species are sometimes not updated or no longer valid to reflect the most recent taxonomic revisions available for many Antarctic marine organisms. However, taxonomic updating is an extremely complex task, especially when so many diversified groups of organisms are involved; such an effort was probably beyond the scope of the book.
The author, George A. Knox – Professor Emeritus of zoology at the University of Canterbury (Christchurch, New Zealand) – has been a leading authority of Antarctic research. His experience spans subjects from intertidal ecology and polychaete taxonomy and biogeography, to island conservation and coastal management. I had the great pleasure of meeting him in Croatia in 2004 at the final symposium of the SCAR programme EASIZ. This was one of the symposia within the plethora of international programmes Knox listed in his book’s preface and one whose results he largely considered in this thorough update of Antarctic and Southern Ocean biology. This publication will, no doubt, capture the interest of almost all marine biologists working in the White Continent.
