Review: Great Waters: An Atlantic Passage by Deborah Cramer

Great Waters: An Atlantic Passage. 2001. Deborah Cramer, W. W. Norton & Company, 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10110. 442 pages. Web address: www.wwnorton.com. Hardcover, ISBN 0-393-02019-3, US$27.95. Paperback (published 2002), ISBN 0-393-32334X, US$ 15.95

Review: Underwater to Get Out of the Rain: A Love Affair with the Sea by Trevor Norton

Underwater to Get Out of the Rain: A Love Affair with the Sea. 2004 in the U.K.; 2006 in the U.S. Trevor Norton. Da Capo Press, Perseus Books Group, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142. 385 p. Web address: www.dacapopress.com. Hardcover, US$ 25.00

Review: Corals of the World by J.E.N. Veron and Mary Stafford-Smith

Corals of the World. 2000. J. E. N. Veron (author) and Mary Stafford-Smith (editor and producer), Australian Institute of Marine Science, PMB 3, Townsville Mail Centre, Queensland 4810, Australia. 3 volumes, 1382 p. Email: [email protected]; web address: http://www.aims.gov.au/corals. US$175.00 or AU$265.00 set; discounts available for conservation and research organizations; student subsidies available

Book Reviews

World Atlas of Coral Reefs. 2001. Mark D. Spalding, Corinna Ravilious, and Edmund P. Green, University of California Press, Berkeley, California. 424 pages. Web address: http://www.ucpress.edu. Mailing address: The University of California Press, % California/Princeton Fulfillment Services, Inc., 1445 Lower Ferry Road, Ewing, New Jersey 08618. Clothbound, ISBN 0-520-23255-0. US$45.00, £29.95. Oceanographic Processes of Coral Reefs: Physical and Biological Links in the Great Barrier Reef. 2000. Eric Wolanski (editor), CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida. 356 pages. Web address: www.crcpress.com. E-mail orders: [email protected]. Mailing address: CRC Press, 2000 N.W. Corporate Boulevard, Boca Raton, Florida 33431-9868. Hardcover, acid-free paper, ISBN 0-8493-0833- X, US$99.95, £66.99, CD-ROM included. The Everglades, Florida Bay, and Coral Reefs of the Florida Keys: An Ecosystem Sourcebook. 2002. James W. Porter and Karen G. Porter (editors), CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida. 1,000 p. Web address: www.crcpress.com. E-mail orders: orders@ crcpress.com. Mailing address: CRC Press, 2000 N.W. Corporate Boulevard, Boca Raton, Florida 33431-9868. Hardcover, acid-free paper, ISBN 0-8493-2026-7. US$199.95

Long-Term Persistence of Coral Assemblages on the Flower Garden Banks, Northwestern Gulf of Mexico: Implications for Science and Management

The coral reefs of the Flower Garden Banks (FGB) are among the most sensitive biological communities in U.S. Federal waters of the Gulf of Mexico. In 1973, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) established a program of protective activities at those reefs. The MMS and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have been monitoring coral populations on a long-term basis to detect incipient changes caused by oil and gas activities. The results also help in explaining the widespread degradation of reef ecosystems observed in the Caribbean region over the past few decades. Two sites, each 100 X 100 m and 17-26 m deep, have been monitored since 1988: one on the East FGB and the other on the West FGB. The mean coverage of living hard corals exceeded 50% at the two banks in 2002-2003, consistent with estimates of coral cover in previous years. We compared our results from 2002-2003 with data collected during the same period on protected reefs within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS). Low values of coral cover on the reefs in the FKNMS exemplify how catastrophic mortality of the formerly dominant Acropora spp. led to degradation of coral assemblages throughout the Caribbean. The FGB remained in exceptionally good condition, largely for reasons of geography; their northern location excluded the cold-sensitive acroporids, so the regional-scale loss of acroporids did not reduce coral cover. The continuing multidecadal baseline of reef condition generated by the monitoring program at the FGB will enable managers to make informed decisions in the event of future changes to their biota

Florida\u27s Mystery Coral-Killer Identified

An unusual coral disease appeared on the Florida Reef Tract in June 1995. It was distinct in its microbiology, its pattern of tissue degradation, the species susceptible to it, and its regional distribution. Symptoms included a sharp line between healthy and diseased tissue, as occurs with other coral diseases, but the pathogen responsible for the new outbreak seemed more virulent, affected a wider variety of species, and destroyed tissue much more rapidly than these other \u27line\u27 or \u27band\u27 diseases. We have identified the pathogen responsible for this new disease as a new species of Sphingomonas

Climate Change and invasibility of the Antarctic benthos

Benthic communities living in shallow-shelf habitats in Antarctica (<100-m depth) are archaic in their structure and function. Modern predators, including fast-moving, durophagous (skeleton-crushing) bony fish, sharks, and crabs, are rare or absent; slow-moving invertebrates are the top predators; and epifaunal suspension feeders dominate many soft substratum communities. Cooling temperatures beginning in the late Eocene excluded durophagous predators, ultimately resulting in the endemic living fauna and its unique food-web structure. Although the Southern Ocean is oceanographically isolated, the barriers to biological invasion are primarily physiological rather than geographic. Cold temperatures impose limits to performance that exclude modern predators. Global warming is now removing those physiological barriers, and crabs are reinvading Antarctica. As sea temperatures continue to rise, the invasion of durophagous predators will modernize the shelf benthos and erode the indigenous character of marine life in Antarctica