European flora of the desmid genus Cosmarium
Part 1: Text
Language: English - ISBN: 9789403785776 - 772 pages
€65.00
Synopsis
The taxonomy of the desmid genus Cosmarium – currently considered the largest genus of this group of green algae world-wide – is confused by problematic species identification.
Desmids are excellent indicators of environmental conditions and hence frequently used for water quality and nature value assessment. However, for such applications correct species identification (or at least discrimination) is a prerequisite. To improve this critical floras are indispensable, but up till now for the genus Cosmarium no such flora had been published. The present flora aims to meet this need. It presents a taxonomical treatment of the Cosmarium taxa reportedly occurring in the Western Palaearctic Region (which is covering an area slightly more extensive than Europe alone) and includes nearly 900 species and many more infraspecific taxa. All the relevant literature has been carefully studied and opinions of other authors are discussed. In addition, details on morphology, ecology and distribution are given. Finally, every accepted, well established species is illustrated with detailed drawings, for the greater part from the authors own hand.
About Frans Kouwets
Frans Kouwets (1954) devoted his entire professional career to the study of ultrastructure, morphology, taxonomy and distribution of various groups of micro-algae.
In the late 1970’s, being a ms student in biology at the University of Amsterdam, he became fascinated by desmids through the lectures of his teacher Dr. Peter Coesel. In his spare time, he wrote a series of papers on the taxonomy of this group based on the many samples he collected in various regions of France.
These collections and the thousands of drawings he made of the species encountered formed the basis of the present flora, also entirely written in his spare time.