| The Magazine of the CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES |
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reviews A Natural History of Amphibians, by Robert C. Stebbins and Nathan W. Cohen. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1995, 316 pp., $30 cloth. Over the past several years, there has been a heightened awareness about the sad plight of amphibians in many parts of the world. With increased news attention focused on declining populations of salamanders, frogs, toads, and caecilians, it is fortuitous that Robert Stebbins and Nathan Cohen have made available an easily readable book about the ways of amphibians that is valuable to both scientists and the lay public. Based on 33 years of classroom teaching and laboratory experience and nearly two lifetimes of observing and studying (including both painting and photographing) amphibians in the field, this book provides an excellent overview of what these animals look like, where they live, how they reproduce, how they have been affected by evolutionary processes, and what factors will determine their ultimate fate in an ever-changing, human-dominated landscape. Although many readers may be familiar with salamanders, frogs, and toads from their youth: collecting them in the wild and bringing them home for a while (some of us never outgrow this trait), or gazing at and possibly buying amphibians at the local pet store, or even observing amphibians on television, the authors don't require their audience to know anything about amphibians in order to enjoy this book. Indeed, probably few readers who examine A Natural History of Amphibians will know what a caecilian is until they finish the introduction (hint: it looks a good deal like an earthworm). The text is divided into twenty chapters that provide a useful overview of the often fascinating and overlooked life history traits of amphibians throughout the world. The format is largely based on Stebbins' popular college lectures honed over three decades of teaching at the University of California at Berkeley. Stebbins and Cohen first introduce readers to the major groups of living amphibians (currently over 4,500 known species and steadily growing), their place in nature, life cycles, and reproductive modes. Subsequent chapters describe the overall anatomical and physiological features of amphibians, and how their body parts and sensory structures represent adaptations to their environments. Further chapters explore the wide variety of behavioral, reproductive, and survival skills utilized by amphibians. The final two chapters explain the role of amphibians with regard to human welfare and their apparent decline in many parts of the globeÑa subject which is currently under intense study and debate by scientists. All chapters are well documented with selected primary literature citations (at least a third of which are less than ten years old) for those inclined to delve further into specific topics. Although no color illustrations are present except for the dust jacket, the book is well illustrated with accurate line drawings and black-and-white photographs by the authors. Additionally, the text is evenly sprinkled with the first-hand experiences of Stebbins and Cohen who know their subjects intimately and are able to effectively communicate this knowledge to students, scientists, and the general reader. Such efforts shed light on the place of amphibians in the natural world and make us further appreciate the wonders of all living organisms. An immense change in human perceptions of the place of amphibians within the natural world that has occurred over the past 40 years. At one time, scientists considered amphibians to be "primitive organisms" whose heyday was before the age of reptiles. Not that long ago I was informed by a college professor that the loss of all living amphibian species would be inconsequential because there were so few species known when compared to the number of living species of fishes, reptiles, mammals, and birds! As eloquently shown in A Natural History of Amphibians, today's scientific community considers amphibians to be an advanced, diverse, and highly successful group of organisms. As more and more amphibian species are discovered and more is learned about amphibian biology, it would truly be a calamity if some of these organisms disappeared from the Earth as a direct or indirect result of human activities. One hopes that A Natural History of Amphibians will not be the epitaph for a number of distinguished members of the amphibian community. Recommended Books From The Editors' Shelf Mirage: The False Promise of Desert Agriculture, by Russell Clemings. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1995, 247 pp., $28. Though the valleys of the Tigres and Euphrates may have been the cradle of civilization, it seems they paid a heavy price. Today, the Fertile Crescent, the land between the rivers, is a vast salt flat on which nothing, edible to humans anyway, will grow. The problem, ironically, was and is not too little water, but too much. On the assumption that if a little water helps, more will be better, irrigation schemes throughout the world tend to encourage too much watering. Use the precious liquid before someone else does. Take too much today in case there isn't enough tomorrow. What happens to the excess water? It either builds up in the ground bringing soluble salts to the surface where they crystalize and impede plant growth. Or, full of salts, especially selenium, and pesticides, it is drained away to collect in ponds where the contaminants eventually reach lethal concentrations. Despite five thousands years of experience, the practice persists. Short-term rewards override long-term benefits. Politicians and their supporters overrule scientists and history. Clemings traces the same scene repeated again and again across the globe. Clearly and concisely, he spells out how irrigation projects in Pakistan, the Soviet Union, Australia, and much of the West were and are concerned with building dams, not creating drainage. The dams are easy. Getting the water off the land is not. Even Egypt, which for millennia understood the concept of moderation, overwhelmed by burgeoning population and foreign advisors, waterlogged its lands. Our own Californian empires have repeated the mistake in Kesterson, Tulare Lake, and all along the Colorado River. Perhaps Mirage may bring a pause to our blind inclination to drown the desert. Desert Quartet: An Erotic Landscape, by Terry Tempest Williams and Mary Frank. Pantheon Books, New York, 1995, 66 pp., $17, cloth. There are a few writers and artists determined to widen the ways in which we humans participate in the natural world. Sculptor Andy Goldsworthy comes to mind, as does essayist Barry Lopez. And then there is Terry Tempest Williams, who, in this short but lovely book illustrated by Mary Frank, defies the traditional naturalist's role of observer and chronicler. These are love stories of an explicit, sensual sort; but the affair is with the heat, the wet canyons, and dripping ferns of the Utah desert. Does Williams deserve greater appreciation for her courage in attempting this book, or for having the ability and heart to make it work? Luckily, we need not decide. A Manual of California Vegetation, by John O. Sawyer, and Todd Keeler-Wolf. California Native Plant Society Press, Sacramento, 1995, 471 pp., $55 cloth, $39 paper. The California Native Plant Society (CNPS) worked with a team of specialists from government and private land management agencies, as well as amateur and professional plant ecologists, to collate and synthesize a remarkable amount of diverse information into a single, consistent classification system encompassing California's vegetation communities. Accessible to amateurs, but geared for professionals, this manual will be helpful to conservationists, restoration scientists, and anyone preparing environmental impact statements, land use plans, legislation, or public policy. Early chapters give an overview of the history of vegetation classification in California and discuss the philosophy of this new effort. Then, starting with the highest level in this classification hierarchy (vegetation dominated by herbs, shrubs, or trees), the book works its way towards about 250 detailed series descriptions. Each series description lists the recognized plant species by canopy layer and habitat factors such as topography and soil. Location, range, and elevation information are also discussed. Plant communities not classified within the series sections are covered separately in three chapters: Unique Stands, Habitats, and Vernal Pools. The descriptive material is easy to understand, and about half of the series types are illustrated with color photographs. Trees of the California Sierra Nevada by George A. Petrides and Olivia Petrides. Explorer Press, Williamston, MI, 1996, 80 pp., $9.95 paper. This slim, pocket-sized field guide geared to hikers or backpackers briefly describes all 95 species of trees native to the Sierra, alongside pen-and-ink illustrations of trees, leaves, and fruit. The book groups trees by physical appearance of leaves and buds rather than by botanical relationships, so easy comparisons can be made between similar-looking species. A handy key at the back allows identification of deciduous trees after their leaves have dropped. Author George Petrides, a former national park naturalist and professor of ecology at Michigan State University, mentions Native American uses for many of the species. Besides a field guide, Petrides advises bringing a good hand lens along to notice distinguishing details. With these aids, you need no longer rack your brain trying to remember if it's the ponderosa or jeffrey pine that has the prickly cones. The Seven States of California: A Human and Natural History, by Philip L. Fradkin, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1995, 474 pp., $30, cloth. After three-and-a-half decades wandering, studying, and working California, Philip FradkinÑDepartment of Fish and Game bureaucrat, LA Times reporter, and Audubon Magazine western editorÑhas written his magnum opus on what is arguably the most fascinating and valuable piece, or pieces, of land in the world. Home to the nation's "highest mountain, the lowest valley, the oldest life-forms, the youngest population, great wealth, grinding poverty, the tallest trees, dwarf forests, abundant water, widespread aridity, startling fecundity, great beauty, and violent death." California, in Fradkin's picture, contains what is best and what is worst about twentieth-century Earth. Fradkin divides the state into seven parts, each one defined by some cultural as well as geographical cohesion; no small part of his project is to describe how the former has evolved from the later. The book is a sort of a natural and human history of the state told chunk by bioregional chunk. Though it spans epochs, the book's temporal benchmark is Fradkin's own 1960 drive across the state in his VW bug. Much has changed since then and he is not sanguine about the prospects for the future, believing it will be "a dark chaotic time--a time whose origins can be traced back through the natural and human histories of the state." And chaos (geological, biological, and social) is destructive. But it is creative as well. If past is indeed prologue, then California's human and natural history will continue to be a wild ride astride cultures, economies, tectonic plates, and biotic zones. |
Fall 1996
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