THE BLUE REVOLUTION

© 2001 Blackwell Science Ltd. http://www.blackwell-science.com/geb

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LIBRARY LETTERS

Global Ecology & Biogeography

(2001)

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, 443–448

Blackwell Science, LtdOxford, UKGEBGlobal Ecology and Biogeography Letters1466-822XBlackwell Science, 20011032001172Library LettersLibrary LettersLibrary Letters100Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong

ANY NEWS FROM THE UNDERGROUND SCENE?

Lacey, E.A., Patton, J.L. & Cameron, G.N. (eds)(2000)

Life underground: the biology of subterra-nean rodents

. University of Chicago Press, Chicago,IL. xi + 449 pp, figs, tables, taxonomic index, sub

-

ject index. Hardback: Price £41.00, US$65.00,ISBN 0-226-46727-9. Paperback: £24.00, US$24.00,ISBN 0-226-46728-7.

On all the continents but Australia and Antarctic,some rodents have specialized for a unique wayof life in which not only reproduction, but alsoforaging takes place underground. Although mostof those species have long been known to taxon-omists, their biology has remained relatively littlestudied. A review article by Eviatar Nevo (1979),stimulated considerable research into the physi-ology, sensory biology, ecology, taxonomy andphylogeny of fossorial rodents. The interest in thesocial behaviour of subterranean mammals wasincited by the pioneering study of Jennifer U.M.Jarvis (1981) on eusociality in the naked mole-rat.In 1989, a symposium on the evolution of sub-terranean mammals was organized within theInternational Theriological Congress in Rome byNevo and Reig, and an influential book (actuallyproceedings of the symposium) edited by bothconveners was published (Nevo & Reig, 1990).The following year, a book (also based on a sym-posium) edited by Sherman, Jarvis & Alexander(1991) was published on the evolution and beha-vioural ecology of naked mole-rats and relatedbathyergids. Within the last decade, subterraneanrodents have continued to attract the attention ofscientists and the list of publications is growingexponentially. Within the last year, three booksappeared on the subject: Nevo (1999), Bennett &Faulkes (2000), and the book reviewed here. Inthis respect, the claim that this is ‘the first com-prehensive review of the biology of subterraneanrodents’ (cf. the back cover) should be qualified.Whereas the monograph by Bennett and Faulkesfocuses on African mole-rats (Bathyergidae),Nevo’s opus magnum remains unmatched in thedepth and breadth of coverage of the topic.

Some qualification is also warranted withrespect to the comprehensiveness of the currentvolume. ‘Life underground’ is organized into threeparts, totalling 11 chapters. Authors of mostchapters originate from and/or work in the USA(11 researchers) or Argentina (7). Two chaptershave been written by Uruguayan scientists andone chapter was authored by South Africans andan Englishman. This geopolitically narrow selec-tion of authors has (through their backgroundand experience) affected the scope and orienta-tion of the whole book. As Steinberg and Pattonadmitted (p. 322): ‘All researchers have theirbiases, as each of us views the world through ourown experiences. Ours come from a combined45 years of working on, and thinking about,pocket gophers. As a result, we are prone tothink of all subterranean rodents as if they weregeomyids.’ On the other hand, the focus on pocketgophers (Geomyidae) and tuco-tucos (

Ctenomys

)is a welcome contribution to the growing litera-ture on subterranean rodents, mostly equated withthe Eurasian blind mole-rat (

Spalax ehrenbergi

)and with the African mole-rats (Bathyergidae).To learn this other point of view is refreshing,interesting, inspiring and important for all thosestudying Old World mole-rats. However, criticismsof the previous literature with numerous claimsof generalizations that now must be revised, arenot fully substantiated. Bear in mind that these‘generalizations’ were derived from studies ofmole-rats which — in contrast to pocket gophersand

Ctenomys

— are truly subterranean and, con-trary to their American counterparts, are strictlyconfined to the underground ecotope.

Part one of the book involves four chaptersdedicated to organismal biology. The two chaptersdevoted to morphology and sensory biology arerather disappointing. The authors challenge adogma of morphological uniformity of subterra-nean mole-rats and claim that many aspects ofmorphology and sensorics have been un(der)studiedor uncomprehended. However, it appears thatthey are shooting at a scarecrow that they builtthemselves. It is unclear who was so naive anddogmatic not to recognize that adaptive divergence

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and phylogeny as well as convergence determinemorphology. The so much stressed ignorancereflects, at least in some cases, just the insufficientliterature coverage. Both chapters are descriptiverather than explicative, based mostly on older(and incomplete) literature references, many timesfrom secondary sources. In some cases, the infor-mation is misinterpreted or incorrect. I regretthat review limitations prohibit my being morespecific and making the necessary addenda andcorrigenda. The sensory physiology section of theecophysiology chapter is redundant and shouldhave been omitted. Apart from these few pages,however, the chapter is informative and readablewith some very interesting and valuable ideas.The chapter on reproduction in subterraneanrodents is well written and informative — but onlyfor those who are not acquainted with the pro-lific South African–English workshop. Thereare no new ideas or information unpublishedelsewhere. Since the authors focus on Africanmole-rats (and not on American counterparts) andsince both senior authors have published recentlya book of their own (Bennett & Faulkes, 2000)as well as several other reviews on the topic,inclusion of the chapter is somewhat redundant.

The second part of the book deals with thepopulation and community ecology and socialsystems of subterranean rodents. The topics arewell reviewed and I applaud particularly thechapter on population ecology and life histories,which brings some interesting, stimulating, new,unorthodox views and ideas. This part also con-tains minor errors due to misinterpretation oruncritical reading of secondary or older and sub-sequently revised references. The authors contendthat ‘The life history strategies of subterraneanrodents are not as uniform as has long beenassumed’. However, there is no serious literaturewhich, if carefully read, allows such a conclusion!Convergence cannot be (and has never been)equated with uniformity! The authors call forevolutionary explanations of life history differ-ences, yet, in this respect, they do not cross theexisting (mostly ecological) explications and donot advance any new analyses, data or views.

The third part of the book includes four chaptersdealing with evolutionary biology of subterraneanrodents. These are solid, well written reviews ondiverse aspects of evolution, evolutionary genetics,speciation, phylogeny and palaeontology. Some

views and even data or their interpretation couldbe criticised on the grounds mentioned above.The bias caused by viewing the world throughglasses fogged by one’s own experience is mostapparent in the second and, particularly, in thethird parts of the book. However, comparison ofthe amount and scope of knowledge on the pocketgophers and African mole-rats is of interest initself. The study of pocket gophers in Americahas a much longer tradition than that of Africanmole-rats. Correspondingly, a lot of basic auteco-logical data on pocket gophers resulted fromclassical (‘old-fashioned’), detailed studies. Suchdata are mostly missing for bathyergids, the studyof which boomed only after a new (sociobiolo-gical, behavioural-ecological) approach domin-ated animal ecology. On the other hand, geomyids,being solitary, have never really attracted theattention of behavioural ecologists. The comparisonof pocket gophers and mole-rats is also of interestin terms of why and how they were studied.Scientists in both groups can still learn a lot fromeach other.

The book is only sparsely illustrated and mostof the illustrations are of little informative value.Slightly confusing is the consistent designationof

Spalax

as

Nannospalax

and placing spalacidsat a subfamily rank (

sensu

McKenna

et al

., 1998but contra Savic and Nevo, in Nevo & Reig, 1990;Nevo, 1999) while, at the same time, Ctenomyidaeare kept at the family rank (contra McKenna

et al

., 1998).Whereas I started my review by disagreeing

with the advertised point of priority and compre-hensiveness, I would like to close it by agreeingthat this book will be an indispensable referencefor zoologists studying and/or interested in (sub-terranean) mammals.

Hynek Burda

Faculty of Biosciences University of Essen, Germany

REFERENCES

Bennet, N.C. & Faulkes, C. (2000)

African mole-rats.Ecology and Eusociality

. Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge.

Jarvis, J.U.M. (1981) Eusociality in a mammal:Cooperative breeding in naked mole-rat colonies.

Science

,

212

, 571–573.


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McKenna, M.C., Bell, S.K. & Simpson, G.G. (1998)

Classification of mammals, above the species level

.Columbia University Press, New York.

Nevo, E. (1979) Adaptive convergence and divergenceof subterranean mammals.

Annual Reviews inEcology and Systematics

,

10

, 269–308.Nevo, E. (1999)

Mosaic evolution of subterraneanmammals: regression, progression and global con-vergence

. Oxford University Press, Oxford.Nevo, E. & Reig, O.A. (eds) (1990)

Evolution ofsubterranean mammals at the organismal andmolecular levels

. Allan R. Liss, New York.Sherman, P.W., Jarvis, J.U.M. & Alexander, R.D.

(eds) (1991)

The biology of the naked mole-rat

.Princeton University Press, Princeton.

1042001172Library LettersLibrary Letters100Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong

DULLING THE CUTTING EDGE

Farina, A. (ed.) (1999)

Perspectives in ecology.A glance from the VII International Congress ofEcology (Florence 19–25 July 1998)

. BackhuysPublishers, Leiden. ix + 502 pp, figs, tables. Hard-back: Price US $62.50, ISBN 90-5782-041-2.

The title of this book promises much. When Ireceived it for review, I was pleased to have achance to test my knowledge of what might behappening at the frontiers of ecology. The pre-face to this book suggests it should be used for‘describing the state-of-the-art of large compart-ments of … ecological science’ as well as for sim-ply summarizing the conference proceedings. Thebook achieves the latter goal but not the former.With a number of bright spots, this book trudgesthrough the abstracts of the conference symposiaand workshops and leaves the reader with littlesense of the dynamism that should characterizeresearch along the cutting edge.

Perspectives in ecology

is divided into threesections. The first consists of written versions ofthe plenary lectures. These lectures covered familiarthemes for the speakers, and readers who knowthese authors’ work will find little new material.Sir Robert May writes succinctly but with hisusual decisiveness on the numerical controversiesassociated with biodiversity (e.g. how many speciesare there?). Similarly, contributions by Wiens,Dobson and others are interesting and inform-ative, although these chapters are not edited toa uniformly high standard. Despite some minorblemishes, this is fun reading even though it ismostly review for many academic ecologists.

The second and third parts — about 90% over-all — of the book summarize the proceedings ofthe conference’s symposia and workshops. Theformula for these chapters is to provide an over-view of the state of the science, to summarize thesymposium/workshop presentations, and finally topresent some synthesis or conclusion about how itties together. In fact, many of these chapters presentnothing more than a very cursory introductoryparagraph followed by a string of abstracts fromsession participants. Perhaps this is what the editorof the volume intended, but it is dreary reading.It is preferable, from my perspective, to just browsea volume of abstracts organized by subject than towade through a series of contrived book chaptersthat consist of little more than 100–250 word sum-maries of presentations that are too brief to permitmuch perspective on ecology. There is no continu-ity between chapters, but this is unsurprising in aconference proceedings volume of this size.

Content issues quite aside, several contributionsare from authors whose English is awful. Authorsshould have found someone to work through theseproblems before they submitted their chapters,but this is ultimately an editorial shortcoming.

That is not to say that there is nothing to begleaned from the main parts of the book. Somecontributors have taken the time to produce goodwork. I particularly enjoyed chapters on the socialcontext of ecology and ‘blue lists’ of species thatrepresent relative conservation successes. Severalother chapters are presented well and contain sum-maries that might be used to communicate, albeitin little detail, a few of the main themes thatdominate their respective subdiscipline. Don’t expectto find a chapter devoted to every major field inecology. Given the scope of the science, however,I don’t think this is a significant shortcoming.

Ultimately, this book suffers from some basicproblems and provides few rewards for all thehard work required to get through it. I think fewecologists will find a compelling reason to addthis to their bookshelves, but libraries shouldfind the text useful as a summary of mattersecological that were discussed in the summer of1998 in Florence, Italy.

Jeremy T. Kerr

Environmental Monitoring Section Canada Centre for Remote Sensing Ottawa, Canada


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THE BLUE REVOLUTION

Calder, I.R. (1999)

The Blue Revolution

. Earths-can Publications, London. xv + 192 pp, tables,figs, index. Paperback: Price £15.95, ISBN185383-634-6.

A catchy title can sell an idea.

The Blue Revolution

,albeit a term coined elsewhere, achieves just this.

The Blue Revolution

charts the evolution of think-ing about Integrated Water Resources Management(IWRM), spurred on by crises world-wide, froma patchwork of local engineering solutions towardsa ‘holy grail’ of fully integrated thinking withnatural processes at its core.

This evolution is slow, and may not appearrevolutionary to those at the ‘water front’, facedday-to-day by opposition from established short-term and ‘big engineering’ mind sets. However,taking one step backwards, Calder paints a historyof emerging IWRM that he equates as parallelto the Green Revolution. Whilst the Green wastechnical, the Blue is philosophical, relating to ourrespect for the global environment and the pre-cious asset of water. Calder locates the changingthinking within the bigger context of sustainabledevelopment, and the various models that canfurther accelerate it.

The book’s scope is ambitious, seeking to relatehydrology, climate change, erosion and geomor-phology, soil science and land use into a cohesivewhole. It is in the unevenness of coverage of thisterrain that I had most difficulty. Aspects offorest hydrology were covered extensively and indisproportionate depth which, whilst reflecting theauthor’s technical speciality, detracted from thebigger picture. Perseverance is necessary beforethis broader context emerges. Preoccupation withmanaged forestry also seems to obscure thinkingabout the potential benefits of natural, multi-layered forests, including their potential forinternal recycling and efficient use of water andnutrients. The emphasis across the rest of the bookis also largely upon catchment-scale hydrology,with less emphasis upon sediment and nutrientfluxes, microclimates and the local recycling ofwater within the catchment, impacts upon thelocal hydrograph, implications for catchmentbiodiversity, and so forth. The text is also repetit-

ive in places; at times almost as if the draft werenot quite finalized. A few more commas wouldhave helped the reader!

Amongst the book’s strengths is that it seeksto challenge established wisdoms, such as con-ventional assumptions about erosion within treeplantations, and to flush out flaws in thinkingand management tools that inhibit progress.Calder addresses the need to balance the ‘hard’technical issues and tools together with the ‘softer’human dimensions that make IWRM workablein practice. He is also, rightly, critical of scientificmodels that require too intensive and detailedinputs to be practically useful in IWRM, belong-ing as they do in the technical mindset of the

Green Revolution

and not the philosophical andhuman dimension of the

Blue Revolution

.The strengths outweigh the weaknesses. This

book is a helpful and reasonably accessible accountof ongoing developments in thinking about IWRM.For those seeking to progress IWRM schemesanywhere in the world, the two appendices pro-viding

IWRM Contacts and Linking Organizations

and a

Glossary of Participatory Tools

will beextraordinarily helpful.

In his acknowledgments, Calder notes the roleof South Africa, not only in developing anintegrated approach to water management but infostering a truly participative approach amongststakeholders. I can only endorse this, adding thatthe rest of the world may have a lot to learn fromthis emerging ‘

Blue Horizon

’, as well as the otherfar-sighted and inclusive means by which SouthAfrica is addressing its urgent problems.

In conclusion, any book that treats sacred cowsas the source of good steak has my support. And,despite its weaknesses, by challenging receivedwisdom, recoiling from the prevailing mindsetof local fixes, framing local problems withinbroader systems perspectives wherein sustainablesolutions lie, and including people within thepicture, Ian Calder has produced a valuablecontribution.

Dr Mark Everard

Director of Science The Natural Step office in the UK Cheltenham, U.K.



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DISTURBANCE ECOLOGY OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS

Askins, R.A. (2000)

Restoring North America’sbirds. Lessons from landscape ecology

. Yale Uni-versity Press, London. xiii + 320 pp, figs, black andwhite plates, index. Hardback: Price £18.95,ISBN 0-300-07967-2.

Over the last two decades, conservation researchon North American birds has focused on theeffects of outright habitat loss and on the frag-mentation of remaining habitat patches. Thespecies that have received the most attentionare habitat-interior species that are thought toavoid edges, both natural and unnatural, andto favour large blocks of old-growth forest.Disturbance-dependent species are assumed tobenefit from the many ways that humans disturbnatural systems and set back plant communitysuccession.

In this book, Robert Askins challenges this basicassumption. In the most lucid and completetreatment ever written on the conservation ofNorth American birds, Askins points out thatdisturbance-dependent bird species are often atgreater risk and are declining faster than thoserequiring mature forests. If there is a centraltheme to this book, it is that some of the greatestconservation problems faced by North Americanbirds come from the loss of natural disturbanceregimes (fire, flooding, grazing, insect outbreaks,and beaver dams).

The book is organized into chapters, eachdealing with a different ecosystem in which dis-turbances play a critical role in the communityecology of birds. Askins has long argued thatgrassland and thicket birds, which are disappear-ing rapidly from the North-east, are native to thisregion rather than recent colonists of habitatsgenerated by European colonists, such as hayfields,abandoned farm fields, and regenerating forests.Askins carefully reviews the evidence from histor-ical reconstructions of landscape composition.From this review, Askins concludes that naturaldisturbances such as beaver dams, flood pulses,windstorms, fires, and insect outbreaks as well asdisturbances by Native Americans (burning andslash-and-burn farming) had long maintained opengrasslands and shrublands not unlike those presentduring the Pleistocene. Based on this conclusion,Askins argues that grassland and shrubland birds

merit at least equal conservation concern asforest-interior birds in the North-east. This is apersuasive, but controversial argument to thosewho argued that declines in shrubland and grass-land birds simply reflect a return to healthy andnatural forested conditions.

One of the greatest strengths of this book isits treatment of floodplains in the South-east andSouth-west. The alteration of natural flood pulsesas a result of dams, channelization, levees, agri-cultural run-off and irrigation has so changedfloodplain vegetation that several species thatdepend upon disturbance-generated habitats areeither extinct (e.g. cane-dependent Bachman’swarbler

Vermivora bachmanii

) or endangered (e.g.willow-dependent least Bell’s vireo

Vireo pusillusbellii

and south-western willow flycatcher

Empi-donax traillii extimus

). Askins also provides excel-lent accounts of how many other endangered orextinct species depend upon fire-generated pinesavannas (e.g. red-cockaded woodpecker

Picoidesborealis

) and shrublands (e.g. black-capped vireo

Vireo atricapillus

and Kirtland’s warbler

Dend-roica kirtlandii

). Even those symbols of pristineold-growth forest, the now-extinct Carolina parakeet(

Conuropsis carolinensis

) and ivory-billed wood-pecker (

Campephilus principalis

) may have dependedupon flood-generated backwater forests and deadtrees for nesting and foraging.

Askins also provides good overviews of con-servation of grassland birds in the Midwest andof birds in the mountainous West. Once again,the loss of natural disturbance regimes, especiallyfire and grazing by bison, pose just as great athreat to bird populations as outright habitatloss.

For those of us who study the negative conse-quences of habitat fragmentation, and there area lot of us, this book also reviews the literatureon adverse edge effects created by agriculture,suburbanization, and silvicultural practices. Theseare indeed substantial problems, but Askins’ bookserves as a timely reminder that fragmentationis just one of a suite of conservation issues thatmust be considered in any conservation plan. Theecosystem and landscape processes that generateplant communities within habitats must also beconsidered. Restoring North America’s birdswill require restoration of natural disturbanceregimes as well as reducing outright habitat lossand fragmentation.


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Askins’ book is clearly and accessibly writtenfor land managers, conservationists, birders,and anyone else with a keen interest in conservingbirds. His writing simplifies and clarifies thedifficult principles of the emerging science oflandscape ecology. Throughout, Askins providescautionary tales about the tragic loss of birdsand ecosystems, but he also gives us practical

recommendations for conserving what we haveleft, which creates an overall tone of cautiousoptimism.

Scott K. Robinson

Department of Animal Biology University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign U.S.A.


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THE BLUE REVOLUTION