Biological Oceanography: An Introduction

By Carol M. Lalli and Timothy R Parsons

This is a textbook to biological oceanography describing the major marine environments and the marine organisms living in pelagic and benthic habitats. Emphasis is placed on biological production and food chains and their geographical variation due to different physical and chemical regimes.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0080410146
• ISBN13: 9780080410142
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Pergamon
• Length: 301 Pages
• Weight: 1.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 9.8"

Customer Reviews

understandable as an ecosystem

The authors provide more than just a superficial descriptive tour of the oceans. The text delves into studying the ocean as an ecosystem or subsets of it, as ecosystems in their own right. The food chain provides one way of understanding an ecosystem, and the adaptations that various creatures have for the niches they occupy. Here, the authors start from first principles, with the photosynthetic species and the depths which they occupy. The book also shows that at the ocean bottoms, even with no photosynthesis, there is still a rich environment for benthic species. The diagrams are well done and readily understandable. The biochemistry is pretty simple, but this is just an introductory text.