This book, of 221 pages and 12 chapters, is a step forward for ecological parasitology. It starts with an introduction by P. Hudson followed by chapters on (1) ecosystem and parasite ecology by M. Loreau, J. Roy, and D. Tilman, (2) community ecology and spatial parasitology and epidemiology by J.-F. Guégan, S. Morand, and R. Poulin, (3) parasitism and regulation of host population by A. P. Møller, (4) food web patterns and the parasite's perspective by M. V. K. Sukhdeo and A. D. Hernandez, (5) ecosystems and parasitism: the spatial dimension by R. Holt and T. Boulinier, (6) parasitism and hostile environments by R. C. Tinsley, (7) parasitism and environmental disturbances by K. D. Lafferty and A. M. Kuris, (8) parasitism, biodiversity and conservation by F. Thomas, M. B. Bonsall, and A. P. Dobson, (9) an evolutionary modelling perspective by S. P. Brown, J.-B. André, J.-B. Ferdy, and B. Godelle, and (10) parasitism in man-made ecosystems by F. Renaud, T. De Meeüs, and A. F. Read. Finally there are conclusions and perspectives by G. G. Mittlebach. Each chapter gives an overview of the state of the art, identifies the most important remaining problems, and points out directions for further research.
The contributors are some of the most influential scientists in their fields, and the book has a good coverage of newer literature, with many references to publications as recent as 2004. The book links parasite ecology to ‘general’ ecology more strongly than is often done in parasitological texts. This is especially true for chapter (1), but many of the others do this in relation to their special fields. The references to and descriptions of ideas in general ecology as well as parasitology are well up to date. Possibly chapter 3 might have gained even more if additional authors, as in most of the other chapters, had contributed from their expert fields.
The individual chapters may be scored as very good or excellent, but a book like this also has ‘emergent properties’ that deserve some comments. For the purpose of illustration we may think of the single host with its parasite as the common origin of two axes. Along a downwards axis the increasingly more-reduced aspects of the host and parasite develop from organ to cell and molecule, and along an upwards axis the increasingly integrated levels of ecology develop from populations to ecosystem. As traditions in parasitology lay along the axes pointing down and traditions in ecological lay along the axes pointing up, texts in parasite ecology tend to be on a rollercoaster journey up and down these axes. This book suffers to some extent from this problem. Books covering other fields of ecology seem better at avoiding this by focusing on the emergent properties of the ecological levels.
The ecosystem concept has proved useful in politics and management, but it has been difficult to make operational for empirical research and there is a lack of data. The usual understanding of the ecosystem concept is as in chapter 1: ‘ecosystem ecology has traditionally focused on the “big picture” of stocks and flows of mass and energy at the whole system level’. And it is pointed out that ‘Parasites are rarely considered in ecosystem studies’ (p. 13). It is doubtful if the use of ecosystem in the title of the book is the best way of attracting ecologists to it, and many of the chapters could have been more factual, and with less speculation, if the intention of having the ecosystem as a common platform, had been relaxed. The lack of good empirical data is unfortunately a wider problem in ecological parasitology, particularly regarding processes rather than patterns. Probably because of this, the same examples are used in several chapters, and this leads to some repetition. This is compensated for by cross-references among the chapters, but some repetition may have been avoided with an even broader use of existing literature.
The concluding chapter claims that most ecologists harbour a classic, taxonomic view of parasites and that parasites are not included in the everyday thinking of most community and ecosystem ecologists. This is probably still true but, since the first edition of Begon, Harper, and Townsend ‘Ecology’ (Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1986), parasitism has been well covered in the basic textbook in ecology. One can observe an increasing number of papers on ecological parasitology in ecological journals, and they are often written by scientists who have not primarily been trained as parasitologists. Further progress will come when ecological parasitologists deal even more directly with the problems, patterns, processes, and parameters that ecologists study. This book takes things a good way down this road.
The book is well-written and produced, and there are few misprints. Illustrations are in black and white which suits the content. Particular effort has been placed on writing legends that explain the figures well. The book is highly recommended.
