Plankton Dynamics of the Southern California Bight

Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Lecture Notes on Coastal and Estuarine Studies Series, Volume 15.Many of us interested in the oceanography of the coastal waters of southern California fed a strong sense of time passing when we compare the present knowledge and research with K. O. Emery’s 1960 book “The Sea off Southern California.” Several volumes would be needed to bring his 1960 book up to date simply because he covered many topics and each has been developed in much greater detail in the meantime.This book is less ambitious. It is about the plankton and is aimed at advanced students and practitioners in biological and chemical oceanography and marine biology as well as those concerned with environmental studies of the southern California coastal region. It is based primarily on work done from 1974 through 1982 in the Food Chain Research Group, a component of the University of California’s statewide Institute of Marine Resources and located on the campus of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla. The book also seeks to present a glimpse of the way biological oceanography was practiced in the 1970’s. This time was a period of rapid change in technique and outlook such that it may deserve some consideration by future historians of oceanography. The book is about the way the studies were conducted as well as why they were done and what results were achieved. Yet this is a technical book; there is no information on the personalities or styles of the investigators. The authors are active researchers in oceanography accustomed to reporting their scientific results in scholarly journals. The book is written in this same style. It will be heavy going for readers not accustomed to such impersonal writing. But this is the writing we do best, and we beg your indulgence.