Ecology and Evolution in Anoxic Worlds

Fenchel, Tom; Finlay, Bland J.

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0198548370 ISBN 13: 9780198548379

Casa editrice: OUP Oxford, 1995

This is a book about the natural history of oxygen-free environments and their microbial inhabitants. Life originated in the pre-oxic world, and anoxic conditions still persist in many places on Earth such as lake sediments, the guts of ruminants, and the deep waters of some marine basins. The authors draw on evidence from geology, biochemistry, ecology, and evolutionary systematics to describe the forces which shape the structure, function, heterogeneity, and evolution of anaerobic communities, and also to discuss the nature of early life on Earth.

Recensione:

Fenchel and Finlay have filled a gap in the literature, providing the reader with a dense package of information on metabolism types and ecology of anaerobe organisms and the new evolutionary perspectives provided by recent phylogenetic research work. (TREE, Vol. 11, No. 1 January 1995)

Comprehensive, clear, thought-provoking and occasionally witty, this book is a rewarding update for advanced students and researchers. (John Postgate, University of Sussex, Nature, Vol. 377, 1995)

Contenuti:

• Introduction
• 1: Anaerobic environments
• 2: Anaerobic prokaryotes: competition and syntrophy
• 3: Anaerobic eukaryotes: phagotrophy and food chains
• 4: The structure of anaerobic communities
• 5: Interactions with the oxic world
• References
• Subject index