Marine Plankton: A Practical Guide to Ecology, Methodology and TaxonomyEdited by Claudia Castellani & Martin Edwards, Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2017. GBP 150.00, USD 202.97. eBook GBP 128.51. ISBN: 978-19-923326-7. eISBN: 9780191835698. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/97819923326.7.001.0001. Hardback, numerous illustrations and some colour photographs and maps, 704 pages.

For a beginning plankton analysts with the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey in the early 1970s, then based in Edinburgh, training materials consisted of a set of rather scrappy photocopied figures of the different planktonic groups. I still have my copies, but now, it is no longer necessary to have such a poor quality collection as this new book, produced by many of the current analysts at the CPR survey, provides detailed taxonomic descriptions and drawings for much of the plankton, both animal and plant. As a Trustee of the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Marine Science (SAHFOS) for the past 10 years, I have followed the development of this book. The effort and time that has been devoted to its production are to be celebrated and the editors and authors congratulated on bringing the project to a successful end. On March 31, 2018, SAHFOS, which has run the CPR survey since the mid 1980s, merged with the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom (MBA) and Marine Plankton provides a fitting tribute to the role SAHFOS has played in the continuation of the survey after the Natural Environment Research Council decided to stop funding the CPR work in the early 1980s. The survey started in 1958, and has a data set, which in parts is 80 years long. Its work will now continue as part of the programme of the MBA.

The book focuses on the plankton of the North Atlantic and is divided into three parts: Section I deals with plankton ecology in a series of eight chapters. These are general chapters and the most likely to go out of date quickly. Section II discusses and describes methodology in two chapters, the first dealing with phytoplankton and the second on zooplankton. These two chapters describe sampling methods, how samples should be preserved and how the individual organisms can be counted. The methods described include details of molecular methods for identification and automatic methods for recognizing and counting organisms. Section III is on taxonomy; Part 1 has three sections on phytoplankton and Part 2, which makes up the bulk of the book deals with zooplankton. This second part goes from page 183 to 640 and includes descriptions of all the major groups including fish larvae, although the coverage is uneven depending on the abundance of different taxa in the plankton as sampled by the CPR. The Crustacea for example dominate with ten sections out of 27.

Each taxonomic section begins with a brief description of the life history and ecology of members of the taxon. General morphology is then described followed by the systematics of the group. This is followed in some cases by a key to the major groups followed by the defining characters of each Family. The detailed sections give information on taxonomic characters, notes on distribution and ecology with figures of the major discriminating taxonomic features and, for some groups in particular the Copepods, a map of distributions as shown by the CPR survey. The maps are small, but they provided a clear idea of where in the Atlantic the species is found in an area that extends from roughly 70°N to 40°N and about 70°W to 25°E.

Information on the phytoplankton is in less detail and only covers the Diatoms, Dinoflagellates and Flagellates. These are the groups that are caught by the CPR but there are many smaller phytoplankton species which are not accounted for.

For those working on fish ecology, this book will be a valuable tool when researchers need to determine how their species fits into the ecosystem. A clear example of this value is given by a recent paper (Batten et al., 2018) showing how the abundance of pink salmon in the southern Bering Sea and around the Aleutian Islands change the zooplankton and phytoplankton communities through their predatory effect.

There are some who might argue that paper-based books such as Marine Plankton are no longer needed—”we get everything these days online.” Many researchers still prefer to read a paper-based book and this one captures in a unitary way that is not tangible in an electronic publication, the accumulated expertise of several generations of taxonomic experts. Although molecular and object recognition methods may be used in future to do the bulk of the identification of organisms caught in large-scale surveys, there will still be a place for the taxonomic expert who can detect the subtle differences and variations within and between taxa as captured in this book. These experts also accumulate a detailed knowledge of the biology of the species that gives depth to their scientific understanding and stimulates new research.

To have this book to hand when identifying plankton will be a wonderful aid and the editors and the other 49 contributors should be congratulated on bringing this work to life. If you are not convinced by my argument and still maintain that electronic is the only way, then you will be pleased to know that individual taxonomic sections will be available electronically and the whole book is available as an eBook. The printed book is expensive but for anyone working on plankton it must be an essential tool. All marine research establishments and fisheries laboratories need a print version but individual researchers may satisfy themselves with an electronic copy of the sections that deal with the taxa they are working on.