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Review of "Keys to the Trematoda. Vol. 3" by Rodney A. Bray, David I. Gibson and Arlene Jones (eds.)

Kostadinova Aneta

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Review of "<it>Keys to the Trematoda. Vol. 3</it>" by Rodney A. Bray, David I. Gibson and Arlene Jones (eds.)

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Bray RA, Gibson D, Jones A: Keys to the Trematoda Volume 3

BioMed CentralParasites & Vectors
ssOpen AcceBook review
Review of "Keys to the Trematoda. Vol. 3" by Rodney A. Bray, David 
I. Gibson and Arlene Jones (eds.)
Aneta Kostadinova1,2
Address: 1Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Branišovská 31, 370 05 Жeské BudЕjovice, Czech Republic 
and 2Central Laboratory of General Ecology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 2 Gagarin Street, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria
Email: Aneta Kostadinova - Aneta.Kostadinova@uv.es
Book details
Bray RA, Gibson D, Jones A: Keys to the Trematoda Volume 3. 
CAB International and Natural History Museum, London; 
2008:824.  ISBN 0-85199-547-0
Review
The third and final volume of a series on the systematics
and identification of the platyhelminth class Trematoda
Rudolphi, 1808, perhaps one of the most important tax-
onomy endeavours of this century, is now available.
The volume includes five superfamilies of the Order Pla-
giorchiida (Gorgoderoidea Looss, 1899; Microphalloidea
Ward, 1901; Monorchioidea Odhner, 1911; Opisthor-
chioidea Looss, 1899; and Plagiorchioidea Lühe, 1901)
and the family Didymozoidae Monticelli, 1888 of the
Order Strigeida which was omitted from Volume 1. As in
the previous volumes, the core of the book (59 chapters
covering 618 genera) provides taxonomic background
which invariably represents top-class discussion based on
extensive knowledge of the history of the group and of the
literature, familial diagnoses, keys and diagnoses to the
genera and subfamilies (where applicable). A further five
chapters give short introductions and diagnoses of the
superfamilies, and keys to families. Finally, the volume
includes a linking key to all superfamilies of the Digenea
with a reference to the volume of the series where treated
in detail, and a separate chapter comprising diagnoses of
18 genera incertae sedis in the superfamily Plagiorchioidea
(sensu lato), lists of digenean generic names (genera
inquirenda, larval names and nomina nuda) not used in the
three volumes of keys and a list of the new genera erected
after the publication of the first two volumes of the series.
The third volume thus provides completeness to this ency-
clopaedic work. The text is admirably referenced and
remarkably free from typographical errors.
The novelty of this volume lies in the greater effort put
towards reaching an agreement between morphological
and molecular taxonomy of the Digenea. This, although
leading to problems with key construction based on adult
morphology alone, is a step towards a natural system of
the plagiorchiidans and a sound basis for future molecu-
lar studies addressing phylogenetic relationships at the
suprageneric level.
All chapters are written by a team of international experts,
18 leading scientists from Australia (D.P. Barton, D. Blair,
T.H. Cribb, T.L. Miller and J. Pearson), Brazil (C.P. San-
tos), Czech Republic (T. Scholz), France (S. Deblock),
India (R. Madhavi), Poland (T. Pojmañska), Russia (S.E.
Pozdnyakov), UK (R.A. Bray, D.I. Gibson and A. Jones),
and USA (R.A. Campbell, W.F. Font, J.M. Lotz and V.V.
Tkach). As in the previous volumes a profound editorial
effort has brought coherence to the book although some
authors use additional taxonomic categories (supersub-
family, tribe) or diagrammatic representation of the gen-
era. Another 'deviation' considered by some authors is a
description of the characters used in diagnosing genera
which I find very useful especially because it is associated
with difficult families such as the Cryptogonimidae Ward,
1917, Microphallidae Ward, 1901 and Didymozoidae
Monticelli, 1888.
The authors have presented novel concepts for the taxon-
omy of the groups covered often in conjunction with
molecular evidence and all chapters are, therefore, origi-
Published: 29 January 2009
Parasites & Vectors 2009, 2:9 doi:10.1186/1756-3305-2-9
Received: 26 January 2009
Accepted: 29 January 2009
This article is available from: http://www.parasitesandvectors.com/content/2/1/9
© 2009 Kostadinova; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), 
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Page 1 of 2
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nal. A substantial effort has been made towards reap-
praisal of the generic diagnoses via re-examination of type
and/or other representative species. Application of an
additional 'originality' metric based on the proportion of
the original illustrations reveals uneven distribution
across the chapters apparently related to the availability of
the type- and/or comparative material with the highest
values of 'originality' for the taxa covered by S. Deblock
(88%), J. Pearson (78%) and T. Scholz (72%) followed by
V.V. Tkach (47%) and R.A. Bray (46%). The style of the
illustrations differs but line drawings are clear in spite of
the reduction (though some dicrocoeliid figures are too
small) and aid in the portrayal of generic features.
This book represents the most important contribution to
the systematics and identification of the taxa covered and,
together with the previous two volumes, will serve as
essential unique source of biodiversity information well
into the 21st Century. The volume is essential for taxono-
mists and the comprehensive keys will be valuable for par-
asitologists, both experts and novices, who study the
diversity of parasites of wild-life vertebrates. It also
includes groups of veterinary and medical significance
such as the Dicrocoeliidae and Opisthorchiidae thus hav-
ing direct relevance to human and veterinary parasitolo-
gists. No doubt this long awaited volume will join the first
two in the libraries of schools of biological, medical and
veterinary sciences and parasitology research laboratories.
I congratulate the editors and authors and recommend it
highly.
Competing interests
The author has contributed to a previous volume in this
series.Page 2 of 2
(page number not for citation purposes)


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Review of "Keys to the Trematoda. Vol. 3" by Rodney A. Bray, David I. Gibson and Arlene Jones (eds.)

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