The Mollusks: A Guide to Their Study, Collection, and Preservation [Paperback]

C.F. Sturm (Editor), T.A. Pearce (Editor), A. Valdes (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1581129300 | ISBN-13: 978-1581129304 | Publication Date: July 14, 2006 | Edition: 1st

Mollusks have been important to humans since our earliest days. Initially, when humans were primarily interested in what they could eat or use, mollusks were important as food, ornaments, and materials for tools. Over the centuries, as human knowledge branched out and individuals started to study the world around them, mollusks were important subjects for learning how things worked. In this volume, the editors and contributors have brought together a broad range of topics within the field of malacology. It is our expectation that these topics will be of interest and use to amateur and professional malacologists.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

C. F. Sturm, Research Associate, Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, PA

T. A. Pearce, Curator Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, PA

A. Valdés, Curator Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, Los Angeles, CA

Product Details

• Paperback: 445 pages
• Publisher: Universal Publishers; 1st edition (July 14, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1581129300
• ISBN-13: 978-1581129304
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #605,241 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Fabio Moretzsohn was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil, where he developed his love for the ocean and seashells at an early age. He received a B.S. in biology from the University of São Paulo. He then moved across the globe to go to Japan to study marine biology, getting a M.S. degree in biology from the University of the Ryukyus, in Okinawa. While there, Fabio met his wife, Heather, who's from Hawaii. They ended up going to graduate school at the University of Hawaii, where he received his Ph.D. in zoology, studying cowrie systematics. Upon graduation, Fabio worked at Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, on a project mapping marine biodiversity hotspots in the Indo-Pacific, using geographic information system (GIS). Finally, he moved with his wife and two daughters to Corpus Christi, Texas, in 2004, to work at the recently created Harte Research Institute (HRI) for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. While working on a comprehensive biotic inventory of the Gulf of Mexico, a project sponsored by HRI, with 140 taxonomic experts, Fabio became involved with and contributed to the Texas Seashells book; it is finally being published now by TAMU Press. The biotic inventory of the Gulf of Mexico, also published by TAMU Press (Felder and Camp, eds., 2009), was converted into an online database, the Biodiversity of the Gulf of Mexico Database. The distribution data is available through OBIS; a richer database is currently being developed and will be available shortly at GulfBase.org. Having lived in four very different regions, with different faunas, Fabio is interested in marine biodiversity, molluscan taxonomy, and conservation.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review from The Nautilus, February 12, 2007

By 

Karl - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mollusks: A Guide to Their Study, Collection, and Preservation (Paperback)

The following is a review from The Nautilus, the oldest, continuously published American journal dealing with mollusks. It is reproduced here with the writer's permission.

Book Review
The Mollusks: A Guide to Their Study,
Collection, and Preservation

Organizers and editors of books with many contributors will attest that it is not always easy to bring such projects to fruition. This may happen for distinct reasons. Different contributors will be inclined to allocate different levels of effort into the preparation of their chapters. Such unevenness may be enhanced when the book in question does not deal with cutting-edge research or alluring scientific breakthroughs. As a result of dissimilar levels of commitment from contributors, completion time and the depth at which subjects are treated may end up varying between the different chapters of the book.

Successful editors will be patient but persuasive, and must have a knack for inviting consistency and adding balance as one chapter flows into the next. In addition, as I know to be the case with the volume at hand, the budget for production and distribution may be very limited from the onset. If all these desiderati and parameters are brought into the equation, it is clear that Sturm, Pearce, and Valdés did a remarkable job in pulling together "The Mollusks", as I will try to show in this review. The Mollusks aims to replace "How to Study & Collect Shells," a guide published in four editions between 1942 and 1974 by the American Malacological Union (AMU; now American Malacological Society, AMS). The concept for this new version of the AMS guide was to assemble a strong and diverse group of museum professionals, research malacologists, and serious collectors to contribute in different areas. As stated in the preface, the target audience will consist of "amateur and professional malacologists," and the book shall "promote the educational mission of the American Malacological Society."

Editor Sturm received the green light from the AMS council to proceed with the organization of the book during the 2000 annual meeting in San Francisco. In the
few years that passed, some of the original contributors have left, new techniques in molluscan systematics were adopted, in particular those for sequencing and analyzing
molecular data; the web, database technology, and digital photography grew by orders of magnitude and saw their status solidified as bonafide research tools. The resulting volume more than replaces the 1974 AMU guide. It consists of 445 pages (in contrast to 107 pages in 1974) of malacological information that may not be found in any other single publication. Twenty-nine contributors prepared 31 chapters covering topics from "Snorkeling and SCUBA Diving" to "Rearing Terrestrial Gastropoda," passing through "Donating Amateur Collections to Museums" and "Organizations, Meetings, and Malacology".

In addition to chapters on methods and techniques, the reader will find specific treatments of the seven main molluscan clades. There are chapters on "Aplacophora" (Amélie H. Scheltema), "Monoplacophora" (Clement L. Counts, III), "Polyplacophora" (Enrico Schwabe and Anreas Wanninger), "Scaphopoda: The Tusk Shells" (Patrick D. Reynolds), and "Cephalopoda" (Frank E. Anderson). Gastropods are treated in four chapters, "Freshwater Gastropoda" (Robert T. Dillon, Jr.), "Terrestrial Gastropoda" (Timothy A. Pearce and Aydin Örstan), "Rearing Terrestrial Gastropoda" (Aydin Örstan), and
"Marine Gastropoda" (Daniel L. Geiger), and bivalves in three ("Unionoida: Freshwater Mussels" (Kevin S. Cummings and Arthur E. Bogan), "Non-Unionoid Bivalvia" (Alexei V. Korniushin), and "Marine Bivalvia" (Eugene V. Coan and Paul Valentich-Scott).

Some contributions may be particularly valuable to collectors, collection managers, and biologists in general. "Archival and Curatorial Methods" (Charlie F. Sturm) discusses a plethora of data on problems that may arise when inadequate materials and preparations are involved provided a list of materials and suppliers that will prove handy both to amateur collectors and institutional collection managers. Two chapters on photography, "Digital Imaging: Flatbed Scanners and Digital Cameras" (Fabio Moretzsohn) and "Applied Film Photography in Systematic Malacology" (Daniel L. Geiger), better than adequately cover the topics with examples drawn from the authors' obvious experiences. "The Molluscan Literature: Geographic and Taxonomical Works" (Sturm and collaborators) offers a brief overview of the malacological literature in which the main types of taxonomic works are discussed and a valuable list of regional publications provided. Other well-researched articles dealing with recent conceptual and methodological advances are "Computerizing Shell Collections" (Gary Rosenberg), "Cladistics and Molecular Techniques: A Primer" (David Campbell), and "Issues in Marine Conservation" (Patrick Baker).

Are there any gaffes or omissions? Certainly, as one could expect from such a bold project. The resolution of halftone illustrations (known as "ruling" in typographical
lingo) is very coarse, with evident loss of detail. In my copy of the book, a typo lingers in the title of Daniel Geiger's article on "Applield [sic] photography . . ."; I read "Monoplacpophora" on page 118, and "Xenoporidae" on page 120. I miss having access to a subject index at the end of the volume. Although I realize that the book is aimed at a very broad audience, I would have loved to see chapters on applications of electronic microscopy and georeferencing. At least some of these deficiencies and absences result from the need to keep production costs within budget, and I can appreciate that.

I am not proposing that this is the definitive tome on malacological techniques and methods because, now more than ever, techniques and methods change fast, rendering this type of guide obsolete at the blink of an eye (think digital imagery and techniques in molecular systematics, to cite only two examples). However, in preparation for inevitable obsolence, the editors have assembled the book in a format that will easily lend itself
to updates. If the editors, contributors, AMS, and the audience are willing to keep the project alive as demanded in fast-evolving times, then this will be the dynamic, definitive guide. Until then, get your copy, and encourage your colleagues, collecting buddies, librarians, and bookstore acquaintances to acquire and promote this great-value guide.

José H. Leal
The Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum
P.O. Box 1580
Sanibel, FL 33957 USA

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Mollusks: A Guide to Their Study, Collection and Preservation, July 21, 2008

By 

Fleurence (The Pacific NW) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Mollusks: A Guide to Their Study, Collection, and Preservation (Paperback)

As an established conchologist, I go to as many lectures as possible in the field of malachology. So far I have 11 lectures under my belt. So the next step is a textbook.

This book has all of the basics and a lot of very technical terminology which baffles college graduates. However, it is an excellent resource for beginner to expert in malacology. It describes techniques and what tools and materials are needed to collect and study mollusks. It tells in great detail how to preserve the specimens for study or display. I feel it is a very beneficial book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Book on Molluscs, April 23, 2008

By 

Raul Sarmiento - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Mollusks: A Guide to Their Study, Collection, and Preservation (Paperback)

One of the few affordable books I've seen that includes land molluscs. Thank you for the speedy service.