SBF Volume 34: Cyclostome Bryozoans

About this book

From the foreword:

"Cyclostome Bryozoans covers the last group of that phylum to be found in the seas round the coasts of the British Isles and also means that all the British species of marine bryozoans are redescribed in the Synopses Series. This is a truly remarkable feat by the two authors, Dr P. J. Hay ward and Professor J. S. Ryland, with the former being responsible for the Ctenostome Bryozoans and the senior author in all but one, British Anascan Bryozoans. He too is responsible for the illustrations, which add so much to the quartet of synopses devoted to the marine Bryozoa.

Cyclostome Bryozoans also shows the authors’ virtuosity in activities as far apart as SCUBA diving for specimens and the use of the Scanning Electron Microscope to illustrate the minute details of these curious colonial animals. The Editors appreciate that a large part of the Synopsis-readership, namely VIth form students, undergraduates and many amateurs certainly will not have access to such an expensive and sophisticated piece of apparatus as an S.E.M. However, knowing the long experience of the authors as marine
biologists, we believe them when they state ‘However, although this technique (S.E.M.) is particularly useful for the taxonomic specialist and allows us to depict accurately the beautiful colony forms of many species, it must be stressed that most of the gaps in the present knowledge of cyclostome biology and ecology can be filled by basic observations employing the simplest techniques’ (p. 29). Thus the Editors and Publisher agreed to the publication of S.E.M. photographs in this synopsis, so that the beauty of both the specimens and the photographs are widely available to encourage that much needed study of the cyclostomes."

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