Each glance into a marine plankton sample is a look into a fantastic world for anyone who wants
to study protists and invertebrate animals. Nowhere is it possible to observe with a simple
device such a variety of forms and taxa developmental stages and adaptations as in a Petri
dish with a small plankton sample placed under a light microscope. This book is an introduction
to the most important and most common taxa present in the plankton and it allows the
identification even of numerous common species. Micrographs demonstrate characteristic forms of
the phytoplankton 70 of protozoans more than 300 show larvae and other developmental stages
and about 90 show holoplanktonic adults of the zooplankton. The comprehensively annotated
pictures are taken from living organisms during marine excursions mainly from the North Sea
coastal area but also from other European coastlines including the western Mediterranean.
Therefore the book is excellently suited to be used in such university courses for students of
zoology and marine biology as well as for their teachers but it is certainly also a
comprehensible guide for any amateur microscopist and interested layperson. In the Second
Edition the most evident new feature is the considerable increase in the number of photographs.
In particular numerous Mediterranean species have been added leading among others to the
inclusion of entirely new plates on trematodes sipunculids pelagic gastropods several
crustacean taxa enteropneusts and holothurians.
