Book reviews

B.A. Whitton, D.M. Balbi, D.M. John, N.T.W. Ellwood, P.V. York & A. Donaldson. Freshwater Green Algae of the British Isles: An Interactive Key to the Commoner Genera and Species. School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, University of Durham, Durham DH1 3LE, 2002. ISBN 0-9538842-3-6. CD-ROM. Price £35 plus VAT for the UK (includes airmail where needed and one user Lucid licence: no VAT charges outside the UK). Formal orders should be made to University of Durham, but sent to Prof. B.A. Whitton, School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, University of Durham, Durham DH1 3LE, UK, preferably preceded by e-mail contact to: [email protected]

This is the second in a series of interactive keys to freshwater algae of the British Isles based on Lucid software and it follows, and in many ways complements, the Freshwater Algal Flora of the British Isles (John et al., 2002). Three of the six authors of this key were also involved, as editors, contributors and illustrators of the flora as well, which ensures a consistent approach to taxonomy across both products. Development of this key, and the earlier key to blue-green algae, was supported by the UK Environment Agency, recognising the need for user-friendly keys for their staff to use. However, the generally cosmopolitan distribution of many of the green algae means that this key has potential applications over a much wider area than just Britain and Ireland.

The principle behind this interactive key is extremely simple – and will be very welcome to anyone who has struggled with a traditional dichotomous key. Instead of the user being ‘asked’ a series of questions by the key-writer and having to answer these in the order demanded, the user instead is presented with a list of all the characters and is able to select those which apply to the organism in question. This is done via an interface that presents the computer screen divided into four quadrants. All the possible characters and their states are listed in the top left quadrant and all possible taxa are listed in the bottom right quadrant. The user clicks on the states that apply and drags each from the top left quadrant to the top right. The software then filters through the database of information, eliminating taxa for which the selected combination of characters does not apply, and moving these to the bottom left quadrant (‘taxa discarded’) until the list of possible taxa is reduced to one. If the user decides that he or she has made a mistake, then they simply drag the character back from the top right quadrant to the top left. A small icon beside each character and state provides an illustration, if required.

The practice is not always quite so straightforward, but the software can itself help the user: faced with a Microspora, I reduced the list of taxa from 296 to a list of 10 filamentous taxa with reticulate chloroplasts in a few easy steps and I was then able to choose an option within the Lucid software that sorted the characters that remained by their ability to differentiate between the taxa. It put ‘pyrenoid number’ at the top of the list, and selecting ‘0’ then left me with three Microspora spp. At this point, the user might want to resort to the traditional approach of comparing illustrations and descriptions, all of which can be accessed easily from the user interface or, alternatively, one could user a further gizmo within the Lucid software, called (appropriately) ‘Bingo’ which will list all the characters that can unambiguously differentiate between the taxa that remain. There is also a facility to adjust the ‘error tolerance’ which is likely to be useful for beginners grappling with the terminology, as it means that taxa are retained if they match all but one of the chosen character states. In effect, the beginner can make a mistake in the character states selected and still reach the correct diagnosis.

So far, so good. The key makes use of version 2.2 of the Lucid software which is an off-the-shelf product that can be purchased by anyone who wants to develop a key, so this review is, in effect, two products in one: the software kernel and the implementation of the software to develop the present key. The strength of the end-product comes from how the software kernel is used. Having seen Lucid's chief competitor, the Linnaeus software, developed by the Expert Center for Taxonomic Identification at the University of Amsterdam, my personal opinion is that Lucid is the stronger piece of software, but not by very much. The user interface is simpler and the gizmos described above, plus others that the present product does not utilise, provide the user with just enough help when stuck. But a competent phycologist could probably make a useful key with either.

Faced with a large group such as the Green algae – with more than 2500 species recorded from Britain and Ireland, the authors have chosen to concentrate on those taxa important for environmental monitoring, plus commoner species. The result is that many genera are represented either by a straightforward generic description or by a description of a one or a few common species. So whilst eight species and five varieties of Pediastrum are listed in John et al. (2002), there are just five species in this key. Similarly, John et al. (2002) list 42 species of Scenedesmus and five of Ankistrodesmus whilst there are 26 and 2, respectively, on the CD-ROM. The Zygnematales are treated as genera only whilst Chlamydomonas is divided into ‘motile’ and ‘palmelloid’ forms. These are, to a large extent, practical decisions (as anyone who has tried to identify unicellular flagellates will appreciate) and the nature of the software means that there is scope for these genera to be revisited and expanded in future versions. However, I am a little unhappy about the risk of all Pediastrum spp. that are found being ‘shoehorned’ into one of the five species listed here. The authors’ policy is to leave out species that are ‘rare or uncertain’; however, I believe that such decisions may reduce the chance of these species being ‘found’ in the future and I would prefer users to be offered the option of a genus-level identification as a default in such instances. The disk also contains a separate, brief key to the Charophytes, which deals only with genera.

A click on any taxon takes the user to taxonomic accounts and illustrations. The former are similar in style to those of conventional paper-based floras, albeit transferred to a series of html pages, and a further minor gripe is that little use is made of the potential functionality offered by this approach. Some hyperlinks to help the user to navigate around the supporting material would have been helpful. The illustrations are a mixture of line diagrams and excellent colour photographs – mainly photomicrographs but including a few habit shots as well.

I have struggled with too many traditional paper-based keys to mourn their passing and sincerely hope that this key, along with the key to blue-green algae means that freshwater algal identification in Britain and Ireland (and beyond) can enter a new era. The authors have done a good job and, by referring to it as a key to the ‘commoner’ freshwater green algae, admit their own limitations. The greatest change, however, may not be simply the adoption of an electronic form of presenting traditional taxonomic information. Reference works that are used for identifying algae typically have long lives, with works published 50 or more years ago still used routinely. Sometimes the taxonomic ideas that were current when the flora was written have changed, but the book is still valued for the illustrations or insights in the text. The shift from a ‘literary’ to a ‘software’ ethos will change this: the authors of this CD-ROM will not be able to rest on their laurels: at the very least the software will have to be upgraded to keep it compatible with new operating systems and other developments in hardware and software. It is to be hoped that a similar culture of ‘upgrades’ can be applied to the taxonomic information as well, expanding some of the incomplete genera and honing the data and supporting information. On a similar theme, many of these older floras to which I refer are the culmination of a lifetime's study by a single individual whereas this CD-ROM has six ‘authors’ but also lists a further eight people who were involved with the project. This represents a second aspect of the shift to a ‘software’ ethos: the involvement of a development ‘team’ rather than one or a few individuals, and one must presume that, over time, the membership of this team will, itself, evolve.

At the current price, this CD-ROM represents excellent value for money and should be useful in a wide range of contexts, including university practical classes, laboratories involved in environmental assessments and basic research. With the present species list, it will remain an adjunct to the ‘standard’ taxonomic works for some time but the ease of use of the Lucid interface will help to break down the reputation for ‘difficulty’ that many algal groups have obtained, often largely because the taxonomic literature was itself so impenetrable. This and the companion CD-ROM for identifying blue-green algae should, with intelligent marketing, help to take algal identification into the twenty-first century.

MARTYN KELLY

Bowburn Consultancy

11 Monteigne Drive

Bowburn

Durham DH6 5QB

UK

AMOS RICHMOND (Editor), Handbook of Microalgal Culture Biotechnology and Applied Phycology. Blackwell Science Ltd. Oxford, UK, 2004: 576 pp. ISBN 0-632-05953-2. Price £135

This is the second comprehensive handbook of Microalgal Mass Culture edited by Professor Amos Richmond that covers many of the relevant aspects and the recent developments in the field. The first one was published more than 15 years ago (Richmond, 1986) delivering the message of microalgal mass culture, a promising alternative source of food and feed for hungry or malnourished populations. In the present volume the Editor clearly states that “Certain very ambitious roles that have been suggested for large-scale Microalgal cultures … are unrealistic”. However, the realization of the inherent limitations of large-scale production on the one hand, and of the great potential of algal production and products on the other, together with the rapid advance in modern biology, challenged the scientific community to look for microalgal fine products of high return value and to improve the efficiency of closed algal mass production systems. Consequently, microalgae are now commercially grown in a wide range of applications, and are being applied in a variety of industries. For example, microalgae are being used in functional foods for humans, as fish and animal feed, and in the pharmaceutical industry. Despite the production limitations the field of algal biotechnology has demonstrated substantial advances and developments that are described in this new title that includes 33 chapters contributed by 41 experts who share their advanced experience and knowledge with the reader.

The handbook is arranged in four sections: (1) Basic aspects of microalgal biology, fundamental techniques for culturing of microalgae and physiological and environmental constraints of production; (2) principles of microalgal nutrition, mass production and processing; (3) case studies of microalgal production; and (4) new frontiers and future prospective for microalgal biotechnology. While some chapters such as “Biological principles of mass cultivation” are very comprehensive and analyze the biological constraints and the technological solutions deeply, other chapters cover various aspects of experimental and commercial setups for mass production of microalgae only briefly, from the traditional production of Chlorella, Arthrospira and Dunaliella to the more recent achievements in the mass production of Haematococcus, Porphyridium, Nannochloropsis and the cyanobacterium Nostoc. Three complementary chapters reflecting one of the important aspects of algal biotechnology cover the application of algal mass production for aquaculture. Lastly, and maybe the most novel section of this handbook, is the coverage of the new frontiers of modern biology, which includes chapters on genetic engineering of microalgae and the use of unicellular algae as platforms for recombinant proteins and the potential of microalgae as gene-delivery systems for expressing mosquitocidal toxins. Other novel aspects, such as bioactive chemicals, heterotrophic production and the enhancement of marine productivity for climate stabilization, are provided as examples for future trends.

The book is well organized, with clear illustrations, figures and schemes. It is an updated and essential reference for applied phycologists and all those studying aquatic systems, aquaculture and product formulation within pharmaceutical, nutrition and food companies.

ASAAF SUKENIK

Kinneret Limnological Laboratory

IOLR

P.O. Box 345

Tiberias 14102

Israel