1 Ponds
2 Living in freshwater
3 The littoral
4 Plankton
5 Catchments, nutrients and organic matter
6 The ecological development of ponds and lakes
7 Food webs and structures in ponds
8 Problems with ponds and small lakes
9 Ponds and the future
10 Bibliography and further information
Index
This book is an excellent addition to the Naturalists' Handbooks series and a testament to the author's ability to explain the complexity of fresh waters to a non-specialist audience. It introduces all of the key elements needed to understand ponds and small lakes, including physics and chemistry in addition to biology and ecology, in a straightforward manner, and is interspersed with realistic practical experiments that can be carried out without the need for a laboratory or complex equipment. However, despite the wealth of information it packs into a compact space, it is the simple, practical and copiously illustrated identification keys that are undoubtedly destined to become its most compelling feature. Those for micro-organisms will be particularly welcomed and I suspect that it will be instrumental in making this component of pond life accessible to a wide audience. -- Mike Dobson, ex-Director of the Freshwater Biological Association
Getting wet and muddy was a childhood trait that Brian Moss never quite grew out of. His research and teaching have embraced freshwaters on five continents over fifty years, a range of approaches from field survey to laboratory and whole-lake experiments and a gamut of sites from lakes in Malawi, Tanzania and Michigan, to thermal streams in Iceland, the Norfolk Broads, the North-West Midland Meres and temperature-controlled ponds at the University of Liverpools Botanic Gardens. When he retired from Liverpool as Professor of Botany in 2008, he was spending at least as much time with invertebrates and fish as with plants and algae.
His work has been widely published, with a textbook on Ecology of Freshwaters, soon to appear in its fifth edition, books in the New Naturalist series on The Broads and Lakes, Loughs and Lochs, and a manual on lake restoration. He has been President of the International Society for Limnology and Vice-President of the British Ecological Society.
He was awarded the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Managements annual medal for his lifes work and leadership in shallow-lake research in 2010, and the Ecology Institutes Excellence in Ecology prize in 2009. This entailed the writing of a book, Liberation Ecology, which interprets ecology for the general public through the media of the fine arts. The book won the Marsh Prize, in 2013, for the best ecology book published in the previous year. Brian loves teaching, plays the double bass (not very well), writes satirical doggerel, often directed at officialdom, and is exercised daily by a large dog.
...this is an excellent guide to its subject from
an expert sadly no longer with us. Professor Moss has
left us many excellent works on freshwater ecology and
this one will be a worthy addition.
*School Science Review*
It is a brief modern insight into freshwater ecology and limnology
aimed at a wide non-specialist audience. I am convinced that this
handbook will prove to be an extremely helpful source of
information, not only for people with an interest in water
microorganisms and ecology, but also students dealing with
different groups of freshwater macro organisms (e.g., especially
students of the biology and ecology of water insects) and also a
useful source of inspiration for biology teachers.
*European Journal of Entomology*
I find this book does a great job of bridging the gap between an
ecology text book (that can feel a little dry and isolated, and is
aimed at helping the student pass a module rather that rolling up
their sleeves and getting into nature) and the field guide that
helps the naturalist identify what they have found but only
provides limited understanding of the ecosystem as a whole.
*Amateur Entomologists' Society Bulletin*
This is a fascinating book, and one that makes the reader work hard
to get the best from it, though the rewards are numerous; most
importantly it is a fitting swan-song that encapsulates the
author’s ability to synthesise ideas from a wide range of sources
and to make new links, the sign of a true polymath.
*Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine*
There can be few of us who have not dabbled with a pond net during
the course of childhood; this excellent new work bridges the gap
between the highly commendable leisure activity of getting wet and
muddy whilst looking for a huge range of aquatic animals and plants
and the serious scientific study of aquatic ecology. Identification
keys are provided to all living things likely to be encountered,
but stop short, deliberately, of naming taxa to species level. The
aim is to interest and stimulate the reader who might then progress
to a more serious involvement.
*Entomologists' Record*
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