• Description
• Images (1)
• Contents
• Reviews
• Author Bio

Revised and updated to reflect the latest in oceanographic research.

Written by the winner of the 1997 Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography, this book presents an in-depth discussion of the biological and ecological geography of the oceans. This is the first comprehensive attempt to divide the ocean into distinguishable regions that permit detailed comparisons. Based on patterns of algal ecology, the book divides the ocean into four primary compartments, which are then subdivided into secondary components. The secondary components are identified and characterized by biogeochemical features including nutrient dynamics, continental shelf topography, and algal blooms. Because ocean-wide regional classification has broad impact on the way oceanographers and ecologists study ocean patterns, this book will have wide and long-term appeal.
`This book is a tour de force. Alan Longhurst has written the book that every marine biogeographer would aspire to write...What emerges is a functional description of inshore and offshore waters that will be an invaluable under-pinning to the design of experiments, the interpretation of results and the management of oceanic ecosystems well into the next millenium. It will be a book that all serious students of oceanography will have to possess, because not only will they constantly be referring to it, but also any library copies will be instantly purloined.' Martin Angel, Southampton Oceanography Centre
`If this book is tedious to read, it is extremely well documented and precisely written, and this is remarkable considering the diversity of sources and sometimes the contradictions Longhurst had to work with.'Yves Dandonneau, Nature