Communities of microscopic plant life, or phytoplankton, dominate the Earth's aquatic ecosystems. This important new book by Colin Reynolds covers the adaptations, physiology and population dynamics of phytoplankton communities in lakes and rivers and oceans. It provides basic information on composition, morphology and physiology of the main phyletic groups represented in marine and freshwater systems and in addition reviews recent advances in community ecology, developing an appreciation of assembly processes, co-existence and competition, disturbance and diversity. Although focussed on one group of organisms, the book develops many concepts relevant to ecology in the broadest sense, and as such will appeal to graduate students and researchers in ecology, limnology and oceanography.

Colin Reynolds joined the staff at the Windermere Laboratory of the Freshwater Biological Association in 1970. He has published two books, edited a dozen others and has published over 220 scientific papers. He was the winner of the 1994 Limnetic Ecology Prize; he was awarded a coveted Naumann-Thienemann Medal of SIL and was honoured by Her Majesty the Queen as a Member of the British Empire. In 2002, he retired and is now both a CEH and FBA Honorary Fellow.