© 2000 by The Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
BOOK REVIEWS
1 Burke Museum and Department of Zoology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195E-mail: kenagy{at}u.washington.edu
Mammals of the Neotropics, Volume 3. The Central Neotropics: Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil. John F. Eisenberg and Kent H. Redford. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1999, x + 609 pp. (ISBN 0-226-19542-2 paper, $40.00); (ISBN 0-226-19541-4 cloth $80.00).
Mammals of the Neotropics, Volume 2. The Southern Cone: Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay. Kent H. Redford and John F. Eisenberg. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1992, ix + 430 pp. (ISBN 0-226-70682-6 paper $48.00); (ISBN 0-226-70681-8 cloth $120.00).
Mammals of the Neotropics, Volume 1. The Northern Neotropics: Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana. John F. Eisenberg. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1989, x + 449 pp. (ISBN 0-226-19540-6 paper $45.00); cloth out of print.
Research on biodiversity, biogeography, conservation, and systematics is greatly aided by any available compendia that provide the "who's who" of the organisms of interest. In many cases biologists must seek out numerous obscure primary publications to track down lists of organisms that belong to a geographic region or to a major taxon over its entire range. As we progress in our understanding of biodiversity, such difficult searching can be obviated by the publication of new, high quality works that list the constituents of biotas and provide synthesis and analysis.
Our appreciation and understanding of mammalian biodiversity in the neotropical region (within South, Central, and North America) continues to be enhanced by the successive appearance of each one of what now amount to three volumes produced by John Eisenberg and Kent Redford. The third volume (1999) brings together the mammal fauna of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil with a thoroughness and style that rise to an even higher standard than that of the first two truly excellent volumes.
The bread and butter of this newest volume consists of the Chapters 5–17 (Part 2: The Contemporary Mammalian Fauna), which amounts to 90% of the text. These chapters are organized taxonomically, by Order, and provide accounts of systematic diagnosis, geographic distribution, history and classification continuing down through family, genus, and species. At the level of genera and species, the authors provide further summaries of available published information on range and habitat, natural history, life history, and ecology. Geographic range maps, with points indicating published localities, are an additional feature. A large set of references follows at the end of each chapter, which is convenient. The nomenclature follows Wilson and Reeder (1993)
, which was not available for the first two volumes; and the Appendix summarizes changes within Wilson and Reeder that replace outdated nomenclature used in volumes 1 and 2. Valuable morphological character keys are interspersed throughout the accounts, to aid in field or museum identification of specimens; often these represent revisions of previously published keys. Good line drawings of skulls accompany many of the species accounts.
The attractive and carefully produced color (and some black and white) plates by Fiona A. Reid are a significant enhancement to the book. Similarly volumes 1 and 2 also contained Reid's beautiful artwork. Such high quality illustrations assist in identification and also simply heighten the level of appreciation for these remarkable mammals and their diversity.
Eight additional chapters (Parts 1 and 3) present a scattered selection of synthesis in areas such as paleohistorical faunas, biodiversity, and biogeography. The three highly specialized chapters of Part 1 all deal with the Plio-Pleistocene of Brazil (authored respectively by S. David Webb, Alceu Rancy, and Castor Cartelle). Part 3 addresses biogeography in five chapters that cover islands including the Galapagos Archipelago (authored by Eisenberg and Redford), biodiversity (Eisenberg), Brazilian mammals (Gustavo A. B. da Fonseca, Gisela Herrmann, and Yuri L. R. Leite), nonvolant mammal communities of the Amazon (Carlos A. Peres), and finally a good descriptive overview of the contemporary mammal fauna of South America (Eisenberg).
Compared to volume 3, the first two volumes in this series contain fewer chapters of general synthesis, but what they do present is broad and useful. Both the biogeography and community ecology of mammals are discussed at the full continental scale in the synthesizing and summarizing chapters found in volumes 1 and 2.
What more could a biogeographer, biodiversity analyst, conservation biologist, or systematist wish for? Certainly the availability of all three of these volumes will stimulate further research and overall synthesis, as well as facilitate research on all of the individual taxa of mammals. Much of the synthesis and analysis that one would like to see now are yet to follow in future research publications; future work will also correct the errors and omissions of this first-time treatment. The coverage of Mexico (which contains 10% of the world's mammal species) and Central America will be welcome. In fact the fourth and final volume in this series is under construction, and it will cover those additional countries that represent the rest of the neotropics.
All three of these volumes represent a remarkable work and will remain indispensable for years to come. They belong, absolutely, in all museums and libraries and are a worthwhile component of the personal library of any mammalogist working in the neotropics. They should be taken along on field expeditions, because they can function as field guides and more importantly as an enormous compendium of pretty much everything that's known about many of the species included. John Eisenberg and Kent Redford have established a high standard and made a great commitment. All together this represents a powerful piece of biodiversity literature.
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Wilson, D. E., and D. A. Reeder. 1993. Mammal species of the world. 2nd ed. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.
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