Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
The African Fish Eagle . By L eslie B rown .
East African Mammals. An Atlas of Evolution in Africa. Vol. III Part B. Large Mammals . By J onathan K ingdon .     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Carcasson's African Butterflies. An annotated catalogue of the Papilionoidea and Hesperioidea of the Afrotropical region , eds. P. R. Ackery, C. R. Smith & R. I. Vane-Wright.
The Impact of Species Changes in African Lakes. Fish and Fisheries, Series 18. Eds. Tony J. Pitcher, Paul J. B. Hart.
Conservation of Fish and Shellfish Resources, Managing Diversity , Eds. J. Thorpe, G. Gall, J. Lennan and C. Nash.     

Book Review

Greenwar, Environment and Conflict , edited by Olivia Bennett.
The Mammals of the Southern African Subregion by J. D. Skinner & R. H. N. Smithers.
Ecology of Natural Resources in Nigeria by Olusegun Areola.     

Museum Exhibit and Photographic Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
African Reflections: Art from Northeastern Zaire . Enid Schildkrout and Curtis A. Keim
African Reflections: Art from Northeastern Zaire . Enid Schildkrout, Curtis A. Keim     

Combination of 10% EDTA, Photosan, and a blue light hand-held photopolymerizer to inactivate leading oral bacteria in dentistry in vitro

Aims:  To study the yeast diversity of Nigerian palm wines by comparison with other African strains.
Methods and Results:  Twenty-three Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains were obtained from palm wine samples collected at four locations in eastern Nigeria, and characterized using different molecular techniques: internal transcribed spacer restriction fragment length polymorphism and sequence analysis, pulsed field gel electrophoresis, inter delta typing and microsatellite multilocus analysis. These techniques revealed that palm wine yeasts represent a group of closely related strains that includes other West African isolates (CBS400, NCYC110, DVPG6044). Population analysis revealed an excess of homozygote strains and an allelic richness similar to wine suggestive of local domestication. Several other African yeast strains were not connected to this group. Ghana sorghum beer strains and other African strains (DBVPG1853 and MUCL28071) displayed strikingly high relatedness with European bread, beer or wine strains, and the genome of strain MUCL30909 contained African and wine-type alleles, indicating its hybrid origin.
Conclusions:  Nigerian palm wine yeast represents a local specific yeast flora, whereas a European origin or hybrid was suspected for several other Africa isolates.
Significance and Impact of the Study:  This study presents the first genetic characterization of an autochthonous African palm wine yeast population and confirms the idea that human intervention has favoured yeast migration.     

Body size frequency distributions in African mammals are bimodal at all spatial scales

Aim  To examine frequency distributions of body sizes for mammal assemblages at several spatial scales and assess the generality of results heretofore obtained only for North and South America.
Location  Africa.
Methods  Terrestrial African mammals were allocated to major biomes, and regional and local assemblages were extracted from published and unpublished literature. We produced body size frequency distributions for local, regional, biomic and continental distributions, both for whole assemblages and for three foraging strata, and compared these with several standard metrics (e.g. mean and median size, interquartile range, skew, bimodality, etc.). Differences between distributions were quantified using t -tests and analysis of variance.
Results  African mammal faunas exhibit features in common with those of North and South America, most notably the gradual reduction in the modality and skew of body size distributions with decreasing spatial scale. Unlike other continents, however, the African mammal fauna exhibits a bimodal frequency distributions at all spatial scales. Our data suggest a role for competitive interactions in local assembly, as documented elsewhere, but further data on locally interacting assemblages are needed.
Main conclusions  The African fauna appears unique in the expression of bimodality at all spatial scales. The presence of a secondary mode at large body size may reflect co-evolutionary adjustments to proto-human hunters and consequent escape from anthropogenic Pleistocene extinctions, but the absence of species of intermediate body size ( c . 250–4000 g) remains anomalous and is not readily explained by either historical or modern (ecological) factors. For the African mammal fauna, a key question in understanding the role of history versus ecology may not be why there are so many large species, but why there are so few intermediate-sized species.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Ecology of Pelicans in the Rwenzori National Park, Uganda by N. A. D in .
Writing a Scientific Paper by V. B ooth .
Ecologie de l'Hylochèrc (Hylochoerus meinertzhageni Thomas) au Parc National des Virunga by J. P. D 'huart .
The Ecology and Conservation of Large African Mammals by S. K. E ltringham .
Roberts Birds of South Africa Revised by G. R. McLachlan & R. Liversidge,
A World List of Mammalian Species . By G. B. C ohber & J. E. H ill .     

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
Laboratory Administration. By E. S. HISCOCKS.
A Text-book of Plant Virus Diseases. (2nd edition.) By KENNETH M. SMITH.
The Storage of Seeds for Maintenance of Viability. By E. BIASUTTI OWEN.
The Study of Plant Communities. (2nd edition.) By HENRY J. OOSTING. Pp. 440. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Co.
Annotated Catalogue of African Grasshoppers. By H. B. JOHNSTON.
Physical Chemistry. By S. C. WALLWORK.
Learning and Instinct in Animals. By W. H. THORPE.
Enzyme, Antigen and Virus. By Sir MACFARLANE BURNET.
The Water Relations of Terrestrial Arthropods. By Professor E. B. EDNEY.
Investigation of Virus Diseases of Brassica Crops. By L. BROADBENT.     

REVIEWS

Books Review in this article:
Forest Trees and Timbers of the British Empire. Part I. Some East African Coniferae and Leguminosae. By L. C halk , M.A., D.Phil., J. B urtt D avy , M.A., Ph.D. and H. E. D esch , B.SC.
Part II. Twenty West African Timber Trees. By L. C halk , M.A., D.Phil., J. B urtt D avy , M.A., Ph.D., H. E. D esch , B.SC, M.A. and A. C. H oyle , B.Sc, M.A.
Part III. Fifteen South African High Forest Timber Trees. By L. C halk , M.A., D.Phil., M. M. C hattaway , B.SC, M.A., J. B urtt D avy , M.A., Ph.D., F. S. L aughton , B.SC. and M. H. S cott , B.SC.
Colloids in Agriculture. By C. E. M arshall .
Flore Laurentienne. By F rère M arie -V ictorin , D.SC.
Plant Viruses. By K enneth M. S mith .
Plant Life: A Text-book of Botany. By D. B. S wingle .
Gardening in East Africa: A Practical Handbook. Edited by A. J. J ex -B lake , with a foreword by Sir A rthur W. H ill .
British Stem- and Leaf-Fungi (Coelomycetes). Vol. I. Sphaeropsidales. By W. B. G rove , M.A.     

Rethinking in African Studies

Book reviewed in this article:
Living under Contract: Contract Farming and Agrarian Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa . Peter D. Little and Michael J. Watts, eds.
African Pastoralist Systems: An Integrated Approach . Elliot Fratkin, Kathleen A. Galvin, and Eric Abella Roth, eds.
Houses in the Rainforest: Ethnicity and Inequality among Farmers and Foragers in Central Africa . Roy Richard Grinker.     

REVIEWS

Plant Anatomy. By K atherine E sau .
Cytochemistry: A Critical Approach. By J. F. D anielli .
Plant Diseases. By F. T. B rooks .
The Fungi. By E rnst A lbert G äumann , translated from the German and arranged as an American text by F rederick L yle W ynd .
Annual Review of Plant Physiology. Vol. iv. Edited by D aniel I. A rnon and L eonard M achlis .
South African Pollen Grains and Spores. Part I. By E. M. van Z inderen B arker .
Plant Growth Substances. By L. J. A udus .
Rice. By D. H. G rist .
The Metabolism of Algae. By E. G. F ogg .     

Will climate change affect ectoparasite species ranges?

Aim  Over the next 100 years, human-driven climate change and resulting changes in species occurrences will have global impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem function, and human health. Here we examine how climate change may affect the occurrences of tick species in Africa and alter the suitability of habitat outside Africa for African ticks.
Location  Africa and the world.
Methods  We predicted continental and global changes in habitat suitability for each of 73 African tick species, using multiple regression models in different climate change scenarios that cover a wide range of uncertainty.
Results  Global habitat suitability improves for nearly all tick species under each of a representative range of eight climate change scenarios. Depending on the scenario, African tick species experience an average increase in global habitat suitability of between 1 million and 9 million square kilometres between 1990 and 2100.
Main conclusions  The potential for successful translocations of ticks and their pathogens from Africa to the rest of the world is likely to increase over the next 100 years. Although the general trend is one of range expansion, there are winners and losers among tick species in each scenario, suggesting that tick community composition will be disrupted substantially by climate change. If this is also typical of other invertebrates, then climate change will disrupt not only the geographic location of communities but also their structure. Changes in tick communities are also likely to influence tick-borne pathogens.     

Book Reviews

Muir, J.F. & Roberts, R.J. (Eds.) (1985) Recent Advances in Aquaculture
Balon, E.K. (1985) Early Life Histories of Fishes: New Developmental, Ecological and Evolutionary Perspectives.
Tytler, P. & Calow, P. (Eds.) (1985) Fish Energetics: New Perspectives.
Casper, S.J. (Ed.) (1985) Lake Stechlin—a temperate oligotrophic lake.
Denny, P. (Ed.) (1985) The Ecology and Management of African Wetland Vegetation.
Salanki J. (ed.) (1985) Heavy Metals in Water Organisms.     

Downwind migration of the African army worm moth, Spodoptera exempta, studied by mark-and-capture and by radar

Abstract. 1. About 166,000 African armyworm moths, Spodoptera exempta (Walk.), were marked at an emergence site near Nairobi when they fed at night on trees baited with dyed molasses.
2. Six marked moths were captured in pheromone traps, including one at 90 km after flying for only one night, and another at 147 km.
3. Moth flight trajectories deduced from radar and from marking showed that migration was downwind.
4. During migration, moths become dispersed; hence the high densities that lead to outbreaks must be produced by concentration.
5. Some moths were ready to mate on the same night they completed their long-distance flight.     

Reviews of publications

Book reviewed in this article:
Die Milben des Süsswassers (Hydrachnellae und Halacaridae [part.], Acari) Teil 1: Bibliographie, Teil 2: Katalog , by Kurt O. Viets.
A Primate Radiation: Evolutionary Biology of the African Guenons , edited by Annie Gautier-Hion, F. Bourlière, J.-P. Gautier and J. Kingdon.
Neurobiology of the Cardiorespiratory System , edited by E. W. Taylor.
The Dragonflies of Europe , by R. R. Askew.
Studying Fossil Horses , by V. Eisenmann, M. T. Alberdi, C. de Giuli & U. Staesche. Collected papers after the 'New York International Hipparion Conference. 1981' Volume I: Methodology , edited by M. Woodburne & P. Sondaar. E. J. Brill.
The Hymenoptera , edited by Ian Gauld & Barry Bolton.
A Study of Blackbirds , by David Snow
Temperature Biology of Animals , by Andrew R. Cossins and Ken Bowler.
Honey Identification , by Rex Sawyer.
Megaherbivores: The Influence of Very Large Body Size on Ecology , by R. N. Owen-Smith.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
Textes ethiopiens magico-religieux . D éborah L ifchitz
La Géomancie à l'ancienne Côte des Esclaves . B ernard M aupoil . ( Ibid ., XLII. xxvii, 690 pp. Paris, 1943.)
Raças do Império . M endes C orrêa . (625 pp. Porto, 1943.)
Customary Law of the Haya Tribe . H ans C ory and M. M. H artnoll . (iii, 299 pp. Published for the International African Institute. London, 1945.)
The Anatomy of Lango Religion and Groups . T. T. S. H ayley . (xii, 200 pp. Cambridge and New York, 1947.)     

How labile are the egg‐laying preferences of seed beetles?

Abstract.  1. Previous studies have produced conflicting results with respect to the genetic lability of host preference in the seed beetle Callosobruchus maculatus .
2. In this study, replicate lines of an Asian population were kept on an ancestral host (mung bean) or switched to a novel host (cowpea). After 40+ generations, lines were assayed for host preference (in choice tests) and host acceptance (under no-choice conditions), and were compared to African lines chronically associated with cowpea.
3. Host preference diverged in the expected direction. When presented a mixture of cowpeas and mung beans, females from the cowpea lines laid a greater fraction of their eggs on cowpea than did females from the mung bean lines. Preference for cowpea was nearly as strong in the cowpea lines as it was in the cowpea-adapted African lines.
4. In contrast, the experimental host shift did not affect long-term host acceptance. African females laid more eggs if given cowpeas than if given mung beans, but realised fecundities in the cowpea and mung bean lines were similar on the two hosts. Females from all lines laid more eggs if they were reared on cowpea than on mung bean, but rearing host had no effect on either relative host acceptance or host preference.
5. Comparisons with earlier studies suggest that the lability of host preference varies among beetle populations, which precludes generalisation at the species level. Because lines were maintained under no-choice conditions, modification of host preference probably occurred via a lower acceptance threshold for the novel host, without a concomitant change in the long-term acceptance of the ancestral host.     

The impact of shrub encroachment on savanna bird diversity from local to regional scale

Aim  Evidence is accumulating of a general increase in woody cover of many savanna regions of the world. Little is known about the consequences of this widespread and fundamental ecosystem structural shift on biodiversity.
Location  South Africa.
Methods  We assessed the potential response of bird species to shrub encroachment in a South African savanna by censusing bird species in five habitats along a gradient of increasing shrub cover, from grassland/open woodland to shrubland dominated by various shrub species. We also explored historical bird species population trends across southern Africa during the second half of the 20th century to determine if any quantifiable shifts had occurred that support an ongoing impact of shrub encroachment at the regional scale.
Results  At the local scale, species richness peaked at intermediate levels of shrub cover. Bird species composition showed high turnover along the gradient, suggesting that widespread shrub encroachment is likely to lead to the loss of certain species with a concomitant decline in bird species richness at the landscape scale. Finally, savanna bird species responded to changes in vegetation structure rather than vegetation species composition: bird assemblages were very similar in shrublands dominated by Acacia mellifera and those dominated by Tarchonanthus camphoratus .
Main conclusions  Shrub encroachment might have a bigger impact on bird diversity in grassland than in open woodland, regardless of the shrub species. Species recorded in our study area were associated with historical population changes at the scale of southern Africa suggesting that shrub encroachment could be one of the main drivers of bird population dynamics in southern African savannas. If current trends continue, the persistence of several southern African bird species associated with open savanna might be jeopardized regionally.     

REVIEWS

Practical Lawn Craft. By R. B. D awson . Foreword by R. G. S tapledon .
An Introduction to Industrial Mycology. By G. S mith .
Cattle Fodder and Human Nutrition: with special reference to Biological Nitrogen Fixation. By A rtturi I. V irtanen .
Coffee in Kenya. By the Staff of the Scott Agricultural Laboratories and the Agricultural Economist, Department of Agriculture, Kenya, with a contribution by the Director of the British East African Meteorological Service. Edited by J. M c D onald .
Third Conference on Cotton Growing Problems: Report and Summary of Proceedings. Pp.
Plant Injection for Diagnostic and Curative Purposes. By W. A. R oach .
Plant Physiology. By E. C. M iller .
Principles of Genetics. By E. W. S innott and L. C. D unn .
The Genetics of Garden Plants. By M. B. C rane and W. J. C. L awrence .
The Cultivation of Succulents , By H. J acobsen . Authorised translation by V era H iggins .
Research and Statistical Methodology: Books and Reviews , 1933-8. Edited by O. K. B uros .
Methods and Material for Teaching Biological Sciences. By D. F. M iller and G. W. B laydes .     

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:
The Biological Action of Growth Substances . (Symposium of the Society of Experimental Biology XI.) Edited by H. K. P orter .
Plant Vims Serology. By R. E. F. M atthews .
Illustrated Moss Flora of Fennoscandia , Vol. I. Hepaticae. By S igfrid A rnell .
Illustrated Moss Flora of Feniioscandia , Vol. II. Musci. Fasc. II. By E lsa N yholm .
Annual Review of Plant Physiology . Vol. VIII. Edited by A. S. C rafts .
Dictionary of Microbiology . By M. B. J acobs , M. J. G erstein and W. G. W alter .
The Origin of the African Flora . By A. S. B oughey .
Die Entstehung der Kulturpflanzen . By F. S chwanitz .
Die kartographische Darstellung der Vegetation des Creux du Van-Gebietes ( Jura des Kantons Neuenburg ). By M. M oor and U. S chwarz .
Le Vacuome de la Cellule Végétale. Morphologic . By P ierre D angeard .
Genetic Mechanisms: Structure and Function . Cold Spring Harbor Symposia on Quantitative Biology, Volume 21.
Handbuch der Pflanzenphysiologie (W. Ruhland, editor) Band VII. Stoffwechsel-physiologie der Fette und fettähnlicher Stoffe. By M. S teiner .
Plant Pathology. By J. C. W alkkr .