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Marine sediments provide the largest habitat on planet earth yet knowledge of the structure and function of their flora and fauna continues to be poorly described in current textbooks.
First published in 1981, this new edition builds upon the strengths of the earlier work but has been thoroughly revised throughout to incorporate the new technologies and methods that have allowed a rapid and on going development of the field. The economic value of marine sediments increases daily, and the new co-author has brought a much-needed human impact dimension to the revised book.
Introduction; 1. Sampling sediments; 2. The sediment and related environmental factors; 3. Describing assemblages of sediment-living organisms; 4. Diversity; 5. Functional diversity of benthic assemblages; 6. Spatial variations in sediment systems; 7. Temporal variations in benthic assemblages; 8. Human impacts on soft sediment systems - trawling and fisheries; 9. Human impacts on soft sediment systems - pollution; 10. The soft-sediment benthos in the ecosystem; 11. The benthos in the management of marine sediments; Concluding remarks
This volume will be a useful and quick introduction for graduate students and advanced undergraduates of the analysis of benthic sampling for use in monitoring programs and integrative studies that seek to extract general features of communities from large sampling schemes. The Quarterly Review of Biology
