John McPhee's twenty-sixth book is a braid of personal history, natural history, and American history, in descending order of volume. Each spring, American shad-Alosa sapidissima-leave the ocean in hundreds of thousands and run heroic distances upriver to spawn. McPhee--a shad fisherman himself--recounts the shad's cameo role in the lives of George Washington and Henry David Thoreau. He fishes with and visits the laboratories of famous ichthyologists; he takes instruction in the making of shad darts from a master of the art; and he cooks shad in a variety of ways, delectably explained at the end of the book. Mostly, though, he goes fishing for shad in various North American rivers, and he "fishes the same way he writes books, avidly and intensely. He wants to know everything about the fish he's after--its history, its habits, its place in the cosmos" (Bill Pride, The Denver Post). His adventures in pursuit of shad occasion the kind of writing--expert and ardent--at which he has no equal.

The theme of this volume is to discuss Eco-evolutionary Dynamics. - Updates and informs the reader on the latest research findings - Written by leading experts in the field - Highlights areas for future investigation

The Hudson River Estuary, first published in 2006, is a scientific biography with relevance to similar natural systems.

With more than 29,000 species, fishes are the most diverse group of vertebrates on the planet. Of that number, more than 12,000 species are found in freshwater ecosystems, which occupy less than 1 percent of the Earth’s surface and contain only 2.4 percent of plant and animal species. But, on a hectare-for-hectare basis, freshwater ecosystems are richer in species than more extensive terrestrial and marine habitats. Examination of the distribution patterns of fishes in these fresh waters reveals much about continental movements and climate changes and has long been critical to biogeographical studies and research in ecology and evolution. Tim Berra’s seminal resource, Freshwater Fish Distribution,maps the 169 fish families that swim in fresh water around the world. Each family account includes the class, subclass, and order; a pronunciation guide to the family name; life cycle information; and interesting natural history facts. Each account is illustrated, many with historical nineteenth-century woodcuts. Now available in paperback, this heavily cited work in ichthyology and biogeography will serve as a reference for students, a research support for professors, and a helpful guide to tropical fish hobbyists and anglers.

Geostatistics is a branch of spatial statistics that was originally developed for the mining industry. The technique is now widely recognised as an important tool for the estimation of the abundance and distribution of natural resources. However, new developments have been required to extend its application to fisheries science, particularly in variogram estimation. This important new title describes the fundamentals of geostatistics in terms more familiar to life-scientists, and uses case studies on seven commercially important fish stocks to demonstrate its application to fisheries survey data. Comprehensive and practical advice is given on how this new method can be used to estimate the abundance (with an appropriate measure of precision) of fish stocks worldwide. Geostatistics for Estimating Fish Abundance will be of vital interest to fisheries research scientists, marine biologists, oceanographers, marine and fish ecologists, environmental scientists and experts involved in the assessment of natural animal resources. The book has been developed as a result of studies carried out by a collaborative team of international researchers expert in this area with financial support from the Commission of the European Communities, AIR specific RTD programme. J. Rivoirard and N. Bez are at the Centre de Géostatistique de Fontainebleau, Ecole des Mines de Paris, France, J. Simmonds and P. Fernandes are at the FRS Marine Laboratory, Aberdeen, UK and K. Foote is at the Institute of Marine Research, Bergen, Norway and at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, USA.