This book is a collection of 15 original papers by rice field specialists from around the world. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations states that rice is grown in over 100 countries. Asia accounts for 90% of the land devoted to rice cultivation and most of the book is focused on Asian rice fields. The books' contributors have worked on all continents where rice is cultivated except Africa. Some European work in Russia and Hungary, and studies in the Matto Grosso, Brazil, and in California, USA, add to the considerable scope of this book.
Rice fields are the most ubiquitous habitats in much of the tropics and subtropics. Rice is ranked with wheat and corn as one of the three most important grain cultures and is a part of the daily ration for one third of the world's population. Rice cultivation has produced a vast system of irrigation reservoirs, channels, ponds and other aquatic habitats. Ecologists working in rice fields in second and third world countries encounter numerous plant and animal species unknown to them. The biodiversity in the rice fields of these countries is often quite surprising. Despite an urgent need for manuals for the classification of plants and animals worldwide, funding of taxonomic work is meager. This book by internationally renowned specialists on rice field ecology is especially welcome.
The first chapter of the book deals with the genesis of rice field from their origin as marshes. The fifth chapter on rice field ecology and fish culture in the former USSR is the first time that the Russian literature has been comprehensively reviewed in English. In subsequent chapters, the microbiology of rice fields and the interactions of the benthic fauna, bacteria and soil chemistry in rice fields are all examined carefully. Efforts to use the seed extracts on neem trees, to eradicate the microinvertebrates that reduce the population density of nitrogen fixers in Philippine (Ifugao) rice fields, is tested in field experiments that are here described for the first time. The Ifugao rice terraces are cultivated in the same manner today as they were two centuries ago. The ecology of rice pests, the importance of bioturbation by tubificid worms in rice fields, nitrogen fixation and algal succession in waterlogged rice fields are described. The role of mud snails and tubificids as recyclers in rice fields, rice-fish culture and the ecology and economics of rice field fish are discussed. Mosquito-borne human diseases associated with rice fields are analyzed in terms of mosquito vectors. Remote sensing of early season rice canopy development in California is correlated with anopheline mosquito larvae development. There has been a shift in the weed population of many rice fields since the introduction of pesticides and direct seeding. The book's final chapter examines the impact of pesticides on the aquatic biota of rice fields.
The Aquatic Ecology of Rice Fields has the same shortcomings one expects from any collected volume of scientific papers, i.e., some topics are missed entirely, and the coverage of some areas is uneven. Apart from fish culture in the Malagasy, African rice fields and fish culture is ignored. The role of rice fields as groundwater recharge areas, and energy flow within rice fields, receive rather limited comment. Nevertheless, the book fulfills its objective of introducing the reader to the aquatic ecology of rice fields from a variety of areas including their biodiversity, pests, the impacts of biocides on rice field ecosystems, integrated pest management and the role of technology. In addition, the 15 authors provide an excellent overview of current research. Each author recognizes the intimate relationship between aquatic cycles and successful rice cultivation. The integration of the material presented in the book's preface, introduction and summary, and the book's 9-page index are excellent, as are its many informative illustrations.
Rice is the most important cereal crop in the developing world and the staple food of over half of the world's population. In 1977 FERNANDO provided evidence that rice cultivation is possibly the oldest form of intensive agriculture by man. He and GRIST both concur that rice was the first cultivated crop in Asia. In general, ecologists have neglected rice fields because they are not natural systems. Agronomists have concentrated mainly on rice plant culture and the pests affecting rice plants. This volume fills a need for benchmark studies on rice field ecology, biodiversity and species inventories. As such, it is useful to rice agronomists, conservationists, vector biologists, integrated pest control researchers and rice field fish farmers.
MIKE DICKMAN, Canada Internat. Rev. Hydrobiol.