Book Review 10

Review

Title: Field and Laboratory Investigations in Agroecology

ISBN 13: 9781439895719

Published: 2014

Pages: 240

Cost: $37.69

Rating (1-5): 4

Submitted By: Chatterjee, Amitava

Date posted: February 20, 2015

Good resource for agroecology lab ideas

This book contains twenty-four field and laboratory exercises divided into five sections on agroecology and companion for the agroecology textbook by the same author. Dr. Gliessman did his doctoral degree in plant ecology from the University of California, and spent more than 40 years in teaching, research, and production. He was the founding director of the University of California, Santa Cruz and co-founder of the non-profit Community Agroecology Network (CAN). This book has closely followed the sequence of the chapters in the textbook. This book comprises field and laboratory experiments to develop the understanding of undergraduate students’ understanding of (1) controls of environmental factors, (2) role of biological community, (3) inter-specific interactions in between communities, (4) evaluation of biodiversity, productivity and function of trees, and (5) food system analyses. First eight chapters are mostly dedicated towards understanding the microclimate control on germination, soil properties and root response to soil type. Next two sections are comprised of plant diversity, soil organisms, allelopathy and herbivore. Studies of farm and field systems section constitute mapping of biodiversity, over-yielding in an intercrop system, grazing intensity and effect of trees in agroecosystem. Last three exercises concentrate on the survey of farm energy use, techniques of phrasing questionnaires for farmer interview and calculation of local food market analysis. All of these exercises are well planned and will definitely help students to develop understanding. Each chapter supplies enough details to organize lab sessions and preparations for lab set up. The most important feature of this book is that author has introduced data handling and statistical analyses of data step by step. I am mostly concerned about two aspects of these lab exercises, (1) most exercises will require class to be conducted at research farm and also (2) some exercises will require field area with specific experimental layout like, Chapter 17; effects of a weedy border on insect populations. Above all, most experiments will be impossible to conduct at colleges or universities, located in cold region. For future edition, I suggest author to incorporate recent advances in measurement techniques and tools (like sensors) and more photographs or diagrams of experimental set up.