Book Reviews

Forty-fifth Annual Report of the Freshwater Biological Association . 1977.
Impact of Acid Precipitation on Forest and Freshwater Ecosystems in Norway . Braekke, F.H. (Ed.) (1976) .
Elliott, J. M. (1977) . Some Methods for the Statistical Analysis of Samples of Benthic Invertebrates .     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this article:
INTEGRATION OF ACTIVITY IN THE HIGHER PLANT . Edited by D. H. J ennings (1977)
PLANT TISSUE AND CELL CULTURE . Edited by H. E. S treet .     

Book reviews

Serruya, C. (Ed.) (1978) Lake Kinneret .
Reay, P.J. (1979) Aquaculture .
Neff, J.M. (1979) Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in the Aquatic Environment. Sources, Fates and Biological Effects .
Thorp J.H. and Gibbons J.W. (Eds) (1978) Energy and Environmental Stress in Aquatic Systems .
Mordukhai-Boltovskoi, Ph.D. (1979) The River Volga and its Life .
Welcomme, R.L. (1979) Fisheries Ecology of Floodplain Rivers .
Heller, H. (Ed.) (1978) Verhandlungen, Gesellschaft für Ökologie, Kiel 1977 .
Elliott J.M. & Mann K.H. (1979) A key to the British freshwater leeches with notes on their life cycles and ecology .
Merritt R.W. & Cummins K.W. (Eds) (1978) An Introduction to the Aquatic Insects of North America .     

Film Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Discovering Country and Western Music . 1977. Produced by Bernard Wilets.
Full of Life A-Dancin' . 1978. Produced by Robert Fiore and Richard Nevell and directed by Robert Fiore.
Guitar Craft . 1977. Produced by Rob Williams.
Gypsy Yodeler . 1978. Produced by Ron Taylor.
Homemade American Music . 1980. Produced by Carrie Aginsky and Yasha Aginsky.
New England Fiddles . 1984. Produced and directed by John M. Bishop.
Nimrod Workman: To Fit My Own Category . 1975. Directed by Scott Faulkner and Anthony Slone and produced by Appalshop
Oaksi . 1979. Directed by Anthony Slone and produced by Appalshop
Ralph Stanley's Bluegrass Festival . 1982. Produced and directed by Jim Kent.
Sourwood Mountain Dulcimers . 1976. Produced by Gene DuBey.
Sprout Wings and Fly . 1982. A film by Les Blank, Cece Conway , and Alice Gerrard.
Tough, Pretty or Smart: A Portrait of the Patoka Valley Boys . 1981. Produced by Richard Kane and Dillon Bustin.     

Buchbesprechungen/Book Reviews

Books Review in this article:
Systemfungizide . V. Internationales Symposium, veranstaltet durch die Sektionen Mikrobiologie und Phytopathologie der Biologischen Gesellschaft der DDR, Mai 1977. Herausgegeben von H. L yr und C. P olter .
Wegler, R. (Hrsg.), Chemie der Pflanzenschutz- und Sdiadlingsbekampfungsmittel. Band 6.
Dropkin, V. H. , Introduction to Plant Nematology.     

Observations on the biology and ecology of the chrysomelid beetle Gastrophysa polygoni in cereal fields

Abstract. 1. Observations were made on the biology of Gastrophysu polygoni (L.) (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) in cereal fields in southern England in 1977, 1978 and 1979. Adults of the overwintering generation emerged in late April/ May and there were usually two generations during the spring and summer months. In 1979 there was some evidence for at least a partial third generation.
2. In the field, the oviposition period was 44 days in the first generation and c . 25 days in the second. Fecundity varied from 586 to 1028 eggs per female and was higher in the first than in the second generation in both 1977 and 1979; in 1978 the reverse was true.
3. Every year there were Iarge losses in the numbers within a generation. However, only one parasite was bred from the developmental stages and a pathogen attacking the larvae was found only in 1977.
4. In some fields and in some years, harvesting and straw burning operations were carried out when eggs were present on the plants. Harvesting did not result in a significant reduction in the numbers of eggs. Burning reduced the numbers of egg batches. The effect was most severe when the straw was spread over the field prior to burning.
5. In the field, significantly more eggs were laid on plants of Polygonum aviculare than on P.convolvulus . In the laboratory, larval survival was higher and duration of development shorter on these two species than on other Polygonaceae found on the farm.     

Sex ratio and adult behaviour of the Antarctic midge Belgica antarctica (Diptera, Chironomklae)

Abstract. 1. The sex ratio in populations of the Antarctic chironomid Belgica antarctica approximates 1:1 at eclosion.
2. Male predominance in surface populations of the short-lived adult persists throughout the summer. The mean ratio, based on data from surface aggregations (austral summer 1977–78) and from sticky traps (1978–79) is about 6:1, with a steady seasonal decline from 10–20:1 to 2–5:1.
3. Males live slightly longer than females but the difference does not account for observed ratios.
4. Samples of adult populations taken from subsurface sites have sex ratios nearer to equality than surface populations.
5. It is concluded that the male-dominated surface populations are equivalent to the male swarms typical of winged Chironomidae.
6. Capture of airborne adults shows that aerial transport as well as water-surface rafting may play a role in dispersal of adults.     

The influence of food plant dispersion on caterpillar searching success

Abstract. 1. Collards (Brassica oleracea L.) grown in clumps were more difficult for unstarved, early instar cabbage white caterpillars (Pieris rapae L.) to find than collards spaced at regular intervals, although total plant densities were identical.
2. Early instar, unstarved larvae are less mobile than later instar larvae (our data) or starved larvae (Jones' 1977 data).
3. Starved larvae and late instar larvae tend to find plants more readily than do unstarved or younger larvae.
4. We contend that larval mobility governs the success of searching caterpillars and their sensitivity to variations in plant dispersion.
5. Our results show that the dispersion of targets can influence searching success even though target density is constant. This means that the degree of clumping in host plants is capable of influencing their availability to herbivores.     

Audiovisual Notes

Growing Up at Paradisc. 1977 . By Sundy Wilson .
Mbindo Lala: a Hospital in Village Form . 1976.     

Predation pressure on the arboreal epiphytic herbivores of larch trees in southern England

Abstract. 1. Quantitative collections were made of arthropod predators from larch trees at Ranmore Common, Surrey, from August 1977 to September 1978.
2. Spiders were numerically the most important predators accounting for 64% of the total.
3. Antisera of the main larch dwelling, epiphyte herbivore orders, Collembola and Psocoptera, and the other common arboreal herbivore group at Ranmore, the Honioptera (principally Psyllidae) were prepared in rabbits.
4. Serological determinations of predator diets indicated that, with a few exceptions, the predators were taking approximately equal proportions of the three prey groups.
5. This apparent non-specificity of the predators is analysed in relation to both the numerical abundance and biomass of the three prey types during the study period.
6. These arboreal arthropod predators are selecting for large but rare prey items in preference to small and common ones.
7. These findings are discussed in relation to the population dynamics of arboreal epiphytic herbivores.     

A study of the dynamics of a natural population of the freshwater crayfish, Austropotamobius pallipes

SUMMARY. 1. Population size, survival and recruitment were estimated from mark—recapture data at frequent intervals.
2. Two types of mortality were identified: (1) moult-associated—an intense but short duration mortality, and (2) overwinter mortality, which operated at a lower estimated weekly rate but over some 30 weeks.
3. Population size reached a mid-summer peak as recruitment into the catchable size classes occurred. Thereafter numbers declined slowly to the end of the growth season, followed by an overwinter decline of some 50% of total.
4. Annual production was estimated at 196.5 kg wet wt ha⁻¹ in 1977, 116.8 kg wet wt ha⁻¹ in 1978 and 87.79 kg wet wt ha⁻¹ in 1979.     

Continuity and Change in Modern India

A Caste in a Changing World: The Chitrapur Saraswat Brahmans, 1700–1935 . Frank F. Conlon. Sponsored by the Center for South and Southeast Asia Studies. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977. xv + 255 pp. $15.00 (cloth).
Shanti Nagar: The Effects of Urbanization in a Village in North India. Vol. 1: Social Organization . Stanley A. Freed and Ruth S. Freed. Anthropological Papers, 53, Part 1. New York: The American Museum of Natural History, 1976. 254 pp. $13.85 (paper).
Family and Social Change in Modern India . Giri Raj Gupta , ed. Main Currents in Indian Sociology, 2. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 1976. xxxiv + 263 pp. n.p. (cloth).
Caste, Class and Democracy: Changes in a Stratification System . Vijai P. Singh. Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman, 1976. viii + 158 pp. $12.50 (cloth), $5.95 (paper).
Dimensions of Social Change in India . M. N. Srinivas, S. Seshaiah , and V. S. Parthasarathy , eds. New Delhi: Allied Publishers Private, 1977. xiii + 518 pp. Rs 60.00 (cloth).     

Fluctuations in the abundance of butterflies, 1976–82

Abstract. 1. A scheme for monitoring the abundance of butterflies at about eighty sites in Britain is described.
2. Indices of abundance are presented for twenty-nine species for the years 1976–82.
3. There are marked differences between species in the scale of annual fluctuations.
4. Some species show correlations between successive index values; for example the summer generation index of Pieris brassicae is highly correlated with the spring generation index.
5. The annual changes in the index values of many species are highly Correlated. The index values themselves also show positive correlations, but these are less strong.
6. The drought of 1976 is believed to have severely depressed populations of many species in 1977.
7. The data do not indicate any general fall in butterfly numbers over the period at the sites in the scheme.
8. The sites are not representative of the countryside as a whole, but, for a number of species, it is considered that the index values reflect wider trends.     

Acidification of three moorland pools in The Netherlands by acid precipitation and extreme drought periods over seven decades

SUMMARY. 1. Relations between acidification by atmospheric deposition, water depth and the occurrence of dry summers in this century, as well as their effects on chemistry, macrophytes and diatoms in three moorland pools, are described.
2. Direct observations and biological data indicate a decrease of pH by c. 0.5 unit over a period of seven decades in a pool where 20% of the bottom desiccates in extremely dry years, and 2 pH units over the same period in a pool where 70% of the bottom is exposed to the atmosphere in such years.
3. Acidification promotes the growth of Juncus bulbosus L., Sphagnum and the acidobiontic diatom Eunotia exigua (Bréb.) Rabenh. and suppresses the growth of isoetids (e.g. Lobelia dortmanna L.) and of acidophilus and circumneutral diatoms. Also the acidobiontic Frustulia rhomboides var. saxonica (Rabenh.) Toni and Navicula subtilissima Cleve, characteristic of humic waters, decline by acidification.
4. In two pools where more than half of the bottom desiccated in 1976, observed concentrations of sulphate were highest in 1977–78 and decreased later on. Juncus bulbosus had a maximum in 1977–80. Eunotia exigua became the dominant diatom after 1976 and decreased after 1981 in the pool with the shortest residence time (3 years).
5. In desiccating pools the long-term decrease of pH is apparently much larger than in softwater lakes in Scandinavia and North America. During the last 50 years, pH dropped rapidly after dry summers, probably due to oxidation of sulphur and nitrogen compounds which were originally derived from the atmosphere, reduced and stored in the sediments. Rapid falls in pH were followed by an increase, presumably due to alkalinity production during sulphate reduction and denitrification.     

The biology and host searching behaviour of a Cynipoid parasite of aphidophagous syrphid larvae

Abstract. 1. Callaspidia defonscolombei was found to be a common, solitary, thelytokous parasitoid of aphidophagous syrphid larvae. In 1977 it was bivoltine with adults being most numerous in early August and late September. It is probably polyphagous.
2. An analysis of host searching behaviour suggests that females respond to an aphid odour bringing them to the region of an aphid colony.
3. Syrphid hosts are located within the aphid colony by response to a contact chemical. There is a host size preference, only larger second and third instar larvae being attacked.
4. Females inject a venom, which temporarily paralyses host larvae, and place the egg inside a cerebral ganglion.     

Resource availability and population size in cactophilic Drosophila

1. Four species of Drosophila, Drosophila nigrospiracula ( Patterson & Wheeler 1942 ) , Drosophila mettleri ( Heed 1977 ) , Drosophila pachea ( Patterson & Wheeler 1942 ) , and Drosophila mojavensis ( Patterson & Crow 1940 ) , are endemic to the Sonoran Desert of North America and breed in different species of necrotic columnar cacti. Differences in resource availability have been suggested to explain the interspecific variability in fly population biology, but resource availability for these species has not been quantitatively assessed thoroughly in either spatial or temporal terms. The resource availability was quantified quarterly at three sites for 3 years and population sizes for each Drosophila species were estimated.
2. Spatial and temporal availability of resources differed significantly among species of host cacti, with organpipe cactus ( Stenocereus thurberi ) being the least abundant and senita ( Lophocereus schottii ) the most abundant spatially.
3. Drosophila species differed significantly in population size. The largest population sizes were found for D. nigrospiracula and D. mojavensis and smallest for D. pachea . Populations of D. mettleri were intermediate to these.
4. Population size was greatest for fly species utilizing host species having the largest and longest lasting necroses.
5. Resource availability does not explain the reduction of fly populations in the summer. Necroses were most abundant when flies were absent.     

Environmental control of pupal colour in swallowtail butterflies (Lepidoptera: Papilioninae): Battus philenor (L.) and Papilio polyxenes Fabr.

Abstract. 1. Some swallowtail butterflies produce both green and brown pupae. The phenotypes result from the joint action of genotype and environment and usually make the pupae cryptic in their habitats.
2. The major environmental cues influencing pupal colour in two swallowtail species were determined to be textural and optical.
3. Differences in the usage of these kinds of cues in the two species are thought to have evolved because of major differences in the pupation habitats. P.polyxenes , which usually pupates on slender stems amidst vegetation, responds more strongly to optical cues. B.philenor , which usually pupates on exposed surfaces of tree trunks and cliffs, responds more strongly to textural cues.
4. Differences in the overall tendency to produce brown pupae ('sensitivity': Hazel, 1977) are thought to be related to the frequency of brown pupation sites utilized by these two species: high average sensitivity in philenor , which often uses brown sites, and lower average sensitivity in polyxenes , which often uses green sites.     

The role of cereal growth stages and crowding in the induction of alatae in Sitobion avenae and its consequences for population growth

Abstract. 1. Alatiform nymphs of Sitobion avenae were first recorded on wheat in 1977 and 1978 when there were 0.6 aphids per tiller and reached a maximum proportion of 0.9 of the population despite a seventeen-fold difference in aphid density between years.
2. At the same aphid density per tiller there was a higher proportion of alatiform nymphs on the tillers at an advanced than at an earlier stage of plant growth.
3. Both pre- and post-natal crowding, and late stages of plant growth, were important in inducing the development of alatae in the laboratory.
4. Changes in the quality of the host plant through its previously reported effect on reproductive and survival rates, and its effect on alate induction and emigration was important in shaping the population dynamics of S.avenae on cereals.     

The lizard assemblage from Seasonally Dry Tropical Forest enclaves in the Cerrado biome, Brazil, and its association with the Pleistocenic Arc

Aim  To determine if the distributions of lizard species from Seasonally Dry Tropical Forest (SDTF) enclaves within the Cerrado biome in central Brazil are associated with the Tropical Seasonal Forests Region, a recently proposed phytogeographic unit of South America, corroborating the existence of a Pleistocenic Arc of SDTFs.
Location  SDTF remnants in the Paranã River valley, municipality of São Domingos, Goiás, Brazil.
Methods  Lizards were extensively sampled using haphazard sampling, funnel traps, and pitfall traps with drift fences during four expeditions. The composition of the SDTF lizard assemblage was compared with those from other South American phytogeographic regions (Caatinga, Cerrado, Chaco, Llanos, and the dry forests of Colombia and Bolivia), based on the literature and our own unpublished data.
Results  The SDTF lizard assemblage contained 20 species, including 11 species with extensive distributions among the regions considered, seven species shared exclusively with Cerrado localities, a single species shared exclusively with other SDTFs, and one endemic species. The presence of Lygodactylus klugei (Smith, Martin & Swain, 1977), presumably endemic to the Pleistocenic Arc formed by the Tropical Seasonal Forests Region, considerably extends the known distribution of this species, suggesting historical connections between Caatinga and Cerrado SDTF enclaves.
Main conclusions  The composition of the lizard assemblage in Cerrado SDTF enclaves seems to corroborate the recent proposal that the SDTF should be recognized as a phytogeographic unit (or dominium). The presence of disjunct populations and endemic species highlights the urgency of considering the uniqueness of the Paranã River valley SDTFs and the importance of its conservation.