Seaweeds: Their Environment, Biogeography, and Ecophysiology

Seaweeds is an impressively compre- hensive and well-organized compila- tion of information about the ecology of macroalgae and seagrasses. This one-author treatise is a re-edited En- glish-language edition of Meeresbot- anik (Luning 1985). It has been up- dated in all areas and expanded to include more paleoecology. A great deal is accomplished in the 370 pages of text, which has been well trans- lated. The book is cleverly organized, so that it may be read from cover to cover with little repetition or it can be used as a reference. The subjects are covered from the general to the spe- cific, according to a biogeographical outline, and the book ends with a 100-page discussion of the experi- mental data that help explain the mechanisms of adaptation that sea- weeds employ.