Freshwater Life: A field guide to the plants and animals of southern Africa

Freshwater life, the first illustrated field guide of its kind for the wider southern African region, describes a vast range of plant and animal groups.
Day, Jenny; Picker, Mike; Griffiths, Charles
22209
978-1-77584-102-9
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34,80 € *

Title: Freshwater Life
Subtitle: A field guide to the plants and animals of southern Africa
Authors: Charles Griffiths; Jenny Day; Mike Picker
Genre: Nature Guide
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Cape Town, South Africa 2015
ISBN 9781775841029 / ISBN 978-1-77584-102-9
Softcover, 17 x 24 cm, 360 pages, 1000 photographs

Description: Freshwater Life: A field guide to the plants and animals of southern Africa

Freshwater Life: A field guide to the plants and animals of southern Africa is the first illustrated book on aquatic fauna and flora in southern Africa that gives readers access to a broad range of taxa within a single volume. Several excellent semipopular guides offer comprehensive coverage of specific animal groups, notably freshwater fishes, frogs, dragonflies and damselflies, and, to a lesser extent, molluscs). There is also a nine-volume series of more detailed guides to invertebrate groups, but these are too technical and too detailed for most readers. Freshwater Life provides readers with a reasonably comprehensive, well-illustrated and is a easy-to-use guide to the most frequently encountered freshwater animals, flowering plants and algae of southern Africa. The authors have attempted to make it sufficiently comprehensive to be useful to secondary- and tertiary-level students, conservationists and water managers, but also accessible enough for members of the public to use, if they want to learn about life in their local rivers, ponds or dams of Southern Africa. Books of this nature are largely collations of existing knowledge, which is constantly growing and evolving. Charles Griffiths, Jenny Day and Mike Picker have thus had to depend on available information as to the distribution patterns of species, some of which are poorly known. Similarly, the availability of suitable images has in many cases constrained the selection of species they could feature.

Content: Freshwater Life. A field guide to the plants and animals of southern Africa

INTRODUCTION
How to use this book
The life-giving properties of water
Conditions in southern Africa
Types of rivers and wetlands
Adaptations to life in fresh water
Physical and chemical characteristics of fresh waters
Human activity in aquatic ecosystems
The effects of human activities on our health
Habitat destruction
Restoration of rivers and wetlands
Conservation of biodiversity and freshwater ecosystems
Ecosystem services provided by freshwater systems
Management of water and aquatic ecosystems in South Africa
Classifying plants and animals
ANIMAL AND PLANT GROUPS
Mammals - Class Mammalia
Gary Bronner
Birds - Class Aves
Peter Ryan
Reptiles - Class Reptilia
Graham Alexander
Amphibians - Class Amphibia
Louis du Preez and Vincent Carruthers
Fishes - Class Osteichthyes
Paul Skelton
Molluscs - Phylum Mollusca
Chris Appleton and Nelson Miranda
Springtails - Subclass Collembola
Charlene Janion-Scheepers
Mayflies - Order Ephemeroptera
Helen M. Barber-James
Damselflies and dragonflies - Order Odonata
Warwick Tarboton
Stoneflies - Order Plecoptera
Duncan Stevens and Mike Picker
Earwigs, crickets and grasshoppers - Orders Dermaptera and Orthoptera
Fabian Haas
Bugs - Order Hemiptera
Patrick Reavell
Dobsonflies, fishflies and alderflies - Order Megaloptera
Mike Picker and Duncan Stevens
Water beetles - Order Coleoptera
Riaan Stals
Flies - Order Diptera
Stephen A. Marshall and Greg W. Courtney
Caddisflies - Order Trichoptera
Ferdy de Moor
Arachnids - Class Arachnida
Ansie Dippenaar-Schoeman and Jenny Day
Crabs, prawns and crayfish - Order Decapoda
Savel Daniels
Amphipods and isopods - Superorder Peracarida
Charles Griffiths
Branchiopods (gill-footed shrimps) - Class Branchiopoda
Jenny Day
Copepods and their allies - Subclass Copepoda
Cecile Reed
Ostracods (seed shrimps) - Class Ostracoda
Koen Martens
Bryozoans (moss animals) - Phylum Bryozoa
Beth Okamura
Lesser-known invertebrates - Phyla Porifera, Cnidaria, Nematoda,
Nemertea, Nematomorpha, Gastrotricha, Tardigrada, Rotifera,
Platyhelminthes and Annelida
Jenny Day
Flowering plants (angiosperms) - Class Magnoliopsida
Carin van Ginkel
Mosses, liverworts and hornworts - Subkingdom Embryophyta
Terry Hedderson
Ferns - Phylum Pterophyta
Carin van Ginkel
Protists - Kingdom Protista
Sanet Janse van Vuuren, Jonathan Taylor and Jenny Day
Prokaryotes - Domains Archaea and Bacteria
Sanet Janse van Vuuren
WATER ACTIVITIES
Dealing with aquatic samples
Saving and caring for water
Assessing the health of an ecosystem
Making your own wetland
Photographing freshwater organisms
GLOSSARY
FURTHER READING
INDEX TO COMMON NAMES
INDEX TO SCIENTIFIC NAMES