By
Bruce Phillips
Preface:
The stimulus for this book was the publication of the biology of the freshwater Crayfish, edited by David M. Holdich (2002, Blackwell science Ltd). Several other books on marine lobsters have also been published over the last 25 years; however, the Holdich book is different. Although it deals with topics such as growth, nutrition, reproduction and behavior, the full material for the commercial species is presented under each separate genera, rather than under fisheries, countries or topics such as management, aquaculture or conservation. We have followed the same approach except for a few minor instances where it was appropriate to make comparisons for clarity.
The amount of material which has been published on marine lobsters is vast by comparison to the freshwater species. For this reason I have encouraged the authors to concentrate on publications which have appeared over approximately the last 10 years, particularly if the material has been reviewed.
Not all genera of marine lobsters are covered in this volume. In selecting the material, I have chosen the genera with the most commercially important populations. Readers will no doubt find gaps in the topics examined. Space limitations precluded the inclusion of additional material.
Readers will find some overlap between chapters in this book. This is not a bad thing and essentially impossible to prevent. For example, chapter 3 (Behaviour), chapter 1 (Growth) and chapter 5 ( Pathogens, parasites and commensals), all include aspects discussed in a number of other chapters, but their comments are different, usually dealing with aspects of impacts on fisheries, fishing, population, or their detection or measurement.
Many people contributed to the development and production of this book. We cannot acknowledge them individually because there isn’t space, but all the authors wish to thank the many colleagues who assisted them with their contributions.
Contents:
Chapter 1: Growth and Development: Understanding and Modeling Growth Variability in Lobsters.
Chapter 2: Reproduction.
Chapter 3: Behaviour.
Chapter 4: Phylogeny and Evolution.
Chapter 5: Pathogens, parasites and other Symbionts.
Chapter 6: Nutrition of wild and cultured lobsters.
Chapter 7: Larval and postlarval Ecology.
Chapter 8: Juvenile and Adult Ecology.
Chapter 9: Homarus Species.
Chapter 10: Jasus Species.
Chapter 11: Panulirus species.
Chapter 12: Palinurus species.
Chapter 13: nephrops species.
Chapter 14: Scyllarides species.
Chapter 15: Conclusions.
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