Artikelname: Animals of Sandy Shores
Artikelbeschreibung: This book looks at the factors influencing sandy shores and how animals coping with living in this environment. There are keys for identifying the main animals found and techniques for studying them to discover more about their populations, distribution, predation and competition

Artikelname: Animals of the Surface Film
Artikelbeschreibung: A calm water surface on any aquatic habitat can support a community of animals and plants of great interest. Because similar constraints apply to all surface waters, members of the same groups of organisms may be found in like habitats in many parts of the world, even though the land surrounding them may be very different. Surface dwelling communities may be found on most bodies of water, including small tarns and ponds, lakes, the still backwaters of rivers and even the brackish tidal pools of estuaries and saltmarshes. Protection from wind and waves by banks and vegetation produce areas of calm water where communities develop. They are destroyed by vigorous wave action or a strong current. The members of these communities, small organisms living immediately below the surface and insects moving over it, can be observed and collected very easily from the banks. Although suitable habitats are common and widespread, the biology of communities living at the surface remains largely unexplored.

Artikelname: Animals on Seaweed
Artikelbeschreibung: Diverse and complex animal communities exploit the immense biological resource and microhabitats that are provided by the seaweed belt along the shores of Britain. The book splits these animals up into herbivores and detritivores, filter feeders, fauna of kelp holdfasts, and predators.

Artikelname: Animals Under Logs and Stones
Artikelbeschreibung: Logs and stones provide an interesting interface between damp soil and dry open air. The animals that live there cover a wide range of groups and have equally wide ranging ways of coping with the environment in which they have chosen to live. These animals have been termed 'cryptozoa' ('hidden' animals). This book does not cover animals found on the sea shore or in very wet places.

Artikelname: Ants
Artikelbeschreibung: Ants and their intricate interactions with plants and other insects make an exciting subject for investigation. 'Ants' will give you practical guidance, whether you're an amateur or professional naturalist.

Artikelname: Aphid Predators
Artikelbeschreibung: An aphid colony is the scene of a lively drama, that runs day and night. A range of insects come to eat or parasitise the aphids or to drink their honeydew. Other Naturalists' Handbooks deal with the natural history of two major groups of aphid predators, hoverflies and ladybirds. This book complements them by focussing on the behavioural interactions among these and other visitors to a colony of aphids, interactions that offer limitless opportunities for observation and experimental investigation.

Artikelname: Aphids on Decidous Trees
Artikelbeschreibung: Pictorial Card Covers 6 x 9 inches tall.Lavishly llustrated with Colour photos and B&W line drawings throughout.

Aphids are tempting subjects for investigation because they are often abundant, easily found, and unlikely to run away, and because of intriguing facets of their biology such as polyphenism, parthenogenesis, gall formation and the production of a soldier morpho. However, until now identification has presented a severe challenge to the beginner, because there are so many rather similar species, many of which have several different forms. We have long wanted a Naturalists' Handbook that would make the study of aphids more accessible to those unfamiliar with the group. We are delighted that Tony Dixon and Thomas Thieme have met this challenge.By confining themselves to aphids living on broad-leaved trees, they have reduced problems of identification to manageable proportions, and we hope this book will encourage more field studies of this important and ubiquitous group of insects.The coloured illustrations in the other books in this series are all paintings. At the authors' suggestion, we have departed from that tradition for this title, and we feel that these excellent colour photographs, showing both the aphids and their effects on the host plants, will be a superb aid to identification.

Artikelname: Blowflies
Artikelbeschreibung: Blowflies are very common and well known insects which most of us recognise as bluebottles and greenbottles. They are easy to keep in captivity and are therefore an ideal group to study. They are the subject of much research due to the parasitic nature of their larvae and their possible benefits to forensic scientists when determining time of death of corpses.

Artikelname: Bumblebees (Naturalists Handbooks)
Artikelbeschreibung: Bumblebees are likeable creatures, and are among the most attractive of British insects and the most amenable to study. Friendlier than honeybees, they do not sting unless severely molested. Furrier, more rotund and colourful, and often larger than honeybees, and conspicuous by their deep buzz and their habit of working in gardens, they are a familiar sight in summer in town and country.In spring a bumblebee colony is founded by a queen, who has overwintered. Initially she lays eggs that give rise to workers. These look after the nest, defend it and collect food for it. Usually many workers are produced before eggs are laid which develop into males and young queens, who leave the nest and mate (see section 3.2).The appeal of bumblebees as subjects for study is partly due to their predictable behaviour. Most animals are forever compromising between multiple objectives such as feeding, seeking a mate, laying eggs, and defending a territory. In contrast many of the bumblebees we see are foraging workers, whose only task is the collection of nectar and pollen to supply themselves and their colony. Because we can follow just what these foragers are doing we can begin to ask how well they are doing it, and this quantitative approach is facilitated by the ease with which the energy and water content of a flower's nectar can be measured (see sections 6.1 and 6.2).Bumblebees are interesting too for their sodal behaviour. Their colonies, rather small and lasting less than a year in temperate regions, are simpler to work with than those of honeybees and can be managed quite easily in nest-boxes.Perhaps the most important practical element of interest is the role of bumblebees as pollinators, often underestimated and still poorly understood. Much more needs to be known about them as pollinators of crops and about their nesting requirements and biologyparticularly now, when the countryside is changing, the number of bumblebee spedes is declining locally, and some valuable bee-pollinated crops are suffering unpredictable variations in yield.

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Artikelname: Dragonflies (Naturalists Handbook)
Artikelbeschreibung: This book looks into the complex behaviour of these beautiful insects, including their reproductive behaviour and flight. It also looks at conservation and recording as well as techniques to study them.

Artikelname: Grasshoppers
Artikelbeschreibung: Grasshoppers are easy to detect by their sound and their movement and they are easy to collect and study. This book gives some background to their life-histories, adaptations to habitats and distribution. There is also the key which will allow easy identification of the more common species

Artikelname: Ground Beetles
Artikelbeschreibung: Ground beetles are handsome, lively creatures beneficial to gardeners and of interest to a growing number of biologists. The first edition of this book made the common species accessible to many who had not studied ground beetles before. In this revised edition the keys are no longer restricted to the commoner species; they have been improved and extended to cover all species currently known in Britain, including nine new ones that have been added to the British list since the first publication of this book in 1986 (see p. 91). The book also introduces ground beetle natural history and offers ideas and techniques that will enable readers to undertake their own investigations on these fascinating insects.

Artikelname: Hoverflies
Artikelbeschreibung: Almost everyone will have seen hoverflies, and perhaps wondered what they are, and how they live. Many people will have been struck by their resemblance to bees or wasps, and probably many will have mistaken them for these groups. This book should enable anyone to identify the commonest hoverflies to be found in the British Isles, and to carry out much-needed research into their ecology and biology. Anyone sufficiently interested in finding out more about these insects will be able to make valuable contributions to our knowledge, for most of the research that will suggest itself to you as you read will need only the most basic of equipment, patience and a notepad. It is not necessary to be at a university to carry out ecological research that leads to publishable results. Being insects, hoverflies have six legs and a body divided into three parts: the head, thorax and abdomen. They are true flies (Order Diptera): attached to the thorax they have one pair of wings, and a pair of club-shaped organs called halteres (fig. 2) that act as gyroscopes to control flight movements. Many families within the Diptera can be recognised from the pattern of veins in the wings, and hoverflies are no exception; fig. 3 shows the general plan of a hoverfly's wing. Distinguishing features are the 'false vein' in the middle of the wing, the very long cell 'C', and the fact that the vein running parallel to the outer edge of the wing (vein a in fig. 3) closes the cells' A: and 'B'. Look at the wing veins in the colour plates, and compare them with the similar veins of another fly, the housefly (fig. 4). This will demonstrate what to look for; the housefly has no 'false vein', arid cell' A: is open Oust) to the wing margin. Once a few hoverflies have been identified and their behaviour observed, you will soon get a 'feel' for which are hoverflies and which are not.

Artikelname: Insects and Thistles
Artikelbeschreibung: Thistles are common plants found throughout the British Isles, often invading crops and pastures as weeds. Most of the information here concerns the two commonest species, Cirsium arvense creeping thistle and C. vulgare spear thistle. Despite their spines, thistles support a rich and varied fauna of insect herbivores with their associated predators, parasitoids and inquilines. Thistles have spread rapidly in countries to which they have been introduced without their insect fauna, often reaching pest status, suggesting that the fauna plays an important part in limiting their numbers (see chapter 5).Most species dependent on thistles are herbivores. Most are restricted to particular microhabitats on the thistle and there are distinct guilds of insects associated with different parts of the plant. The flower heads, the insides of stems, roots and leaves carry characteristic concealed faunas of gall-inducers, borers and miners, apart from the more conspicuous insects which visit flowers, browse leaves or suck sap. Within each guild there are differences in timing of life cycle, methods of feeding and causes of mortality which may minimise competition. Some species are monophagous and others are highly polyphagous, but most show varying degrees of specialisation between the two extremes, being found on a number of species of Asteraceae (=Compositae) (Zwolfer 1965*).

Predators are less restricted, feeding on a range of insect species and selecting microhabitats which may occur on many plant species. Insect parasites (parasitoids) are more conservative; each develops on a single host insect, and most species are restricted to a few related host species, particularly those with similar habits.

The plants themselves provide a succession of microenvironments. Communities associated with the flower heads develop during summer, detrital feeders colonise the brown, dead heads during late autumn and winter, and more enter when the heads and stems have fallen.Thistles contain a number of independent communities, connected only by their common dependence on the plant and by the relatively few roving predators which wander all over the plant. These miniature communities offer opportunities for studying a variety of ecological and entomological topics and the fauna of parts of thistle plants (or closely related species such as knapweeds) has been used to study food webs and life cycle interactions (Redfem 1968; Michaelis 1984), energetics (Cameron and Redfem 1974; Michaelis 1984, 1985b), population dynamics (Varley 1947; Michaelis 1985a; Redfem and others 1992), competition and parasite-host interactions (Zwolfer 1970, 1979,1987). Zwolfer (1988) reviews current literature on insect-thistle interactions and community ecology. "

Artikelname: Insects on Nettles
Artikelbeschreibung: There is a natural tendency to avoid Stinging nettles because of their obvious unpleasant associations. However, I hope this book will convince you that nettles offer exceptional opportunities for field studies and simple experiments in ecology. In the first place, nettles are almost universally available for they grow on clay, peat and sandy soils, in grassland, woodland, heath and fen, in agricultural and waste land and around human habitations; from the coast up to 730 m (2400 ft) in the Pennines and from the Scilly Isles to the Shetlands. Secondly, Stinging nettle is a vigorous, long-lived plant which often occurs in dense stands producing a distinctive habitat which can be examined, treated and sampled in various ways: unlike many other plants, it can be readily grown from seed or rhizome (underground stem), or cut down whenever you wish, and its growth or regrowth can be measured and compared under different conditions such as the amount of shade it receives or the kind of soil it grows on. And finally, Stinging nettle sustains an extremely rich and diverse insect fauna offering a miniature world for exploration. Enough is known about these insects to point out some of their fascinating and contrasting life styles and subtle interactions, but there is much more we do not yet know. This book gives keys to the identification of about 100 species or groups of insects that regularly occur on nettle, with notes on their biology and suggested topics for study - but first a few essentials about the plant itself. There are two kinds of nettle in Britain, the common, perennial Stinging nettle Urtica dioica L. and the more local, annual Small nettle Urtica urens L. Urtica is the Latin name for nettle whilst dioica is derived from the Greek for two houses (di-oikos) and refers to the fact that this species has separate male and female plants. Since some insects favour the developing seeds on female plants and others feed on the pollen of male flowers,this distinction is important.

Artikelname: Ladybirds (Naturalists Handbook)
Artikelbeschreibung: Ladybirds are among the most attractive and popular of British insects. Many species are common. They may be found in almost any habitat from sea coast to mountain top, and from city wastelands to windswept heathlands. Almost every garden will have at least one species.There are a number of reasons for the popularity of ladybirds. Firstly, many ladybirds have bright contrasting colour patterns, although not all are red with black spots. Some are black with red spots, others are yellow and black, or maroon with cream spots. Some have stripes instead of spots and some no spots at all. Secondly, ladybirds are connected with good fortune in many myths and legends. The name 'ladybird' is itself derived from the commonest British species, the 7 spot ladybird. The lady in question is Our Lady, the Virgin Mary. The red colour is said to represent her cloak which in early paintings and sculptures was usually depicted as being red, and the seven black spots represent the seven joys and seven sorrows of Mary. Finally, most ladybirds are carnivorous. Both adults and larvae feed on aphids, which suck sap and damage many crops and garden plants. So, ladybirds are of great importance as major natural predators ef these pests.Yet, despite their usefulness and popularity, much is still unknown about the distribution, behaviour and life histories of British ladybirds.This book aims to outline what is known about the British species, and to stress areas of scientific ignorance. We hope the book will encourage you to discover more for yourselves, particularly through your own research. This group offers great scope for original observations and experiments, and its potential in the biological control of plant pests makes new contributions to our knowledge of ladybirds even more worthwhile. I stock all the titles in this excellant ongoing series. 1.Insects on nettles 2.Grasshoppers 3.Solitary wasps 4.Insects and thistles 5.Hoverflies 6.Bumblebees 7.Dragonflies 8.Common Ground Beetles 9.Animals on seaweed 10.Ladybirds 11.Aphid predators 12.Animals on the surface 13.Mayflies 14.Mosquitoes 15.Insects, plants and microclimate 16.Weevils 17.Plant galls 18.Insects on cabbages and oilseed rape, 19.Pollution monitoring with lichens 20.Microscopic life in Sphagnum 21.Animals of sandy shores 22.Animals under logs and stones 23.Blowflies. 24.Ants 25.Thrips 26.Insects on Dock Plants 27.Insects on Cherry Trees 28.Studying Invertebrates

Artikelname: Microscopic Life in Sphagnum
Artikelbeschreibung: The bogland habitat, which is often threatened by peat extraction, has very great natural history value. It is known to support interesting plants, dragonflies and birds. Less widely recognised, but no less important, is the unique community of microscopic plants and animals inhabiting the leaves and crevices of Sphagnum, the moss that dominates the bog vegetation. This community is well worth exploring. Under the microscope, a drop of water squeezed from bog moss will reveal a wonderful diversity of complex and distinctive organisms. Some are conspicuous and easy to name; others are poorly known and identifiable only to the major group. This book introduces the community, and gives keys for identification, which has hitherto required the use of a range of rather inaccessible literature and specialist expertise. Perhaps this book will help to encourage research that will reveal more about the range of species present, their natural history, and particularly the interspecific interactions that make the bog moss ecosystem so fascinating to ecologists.Ecological processes are usually studied in the familiar context of a wood or a meadow. Here they operate on a more convenient, compact and accessible scale. If moss samples are collected with care and restraint from unthreatened sites, an ecological study performed on a handful of Sphagnum need not harm the environment and will bring great benefits in terms of increased understanding and appreciation of a microcosm that deserves a wider audience.

Artikelname: Plant Galls
Artikelbeschreibung: A much-needed book on a fascinating subject, enabling you to study plany galls in detail. Gall-makers, communities and interactions, identification, numerous keys, food webs and techniques are included.

Artikelname: Solitary Wasps
Artikelbeschreibung: Solitary wasps are common insects although they often go unnoticed. They are well.worth looking at; their beautifully elaborate behaviour poses questions of great ecological and evolutionary concern and much remains to be discovered about the biology of even the commonest British species. This book aims to show how interesting solitary wasps can be and give enough information about their natural history to enable readers to make biological observations that will make a real contribution to knowledge; it helps with the naming of wasps and it offers some methods and techniques, references and addresses that may be useful in pursuing the investigation and in communicating the findings.

Artikelname: Weevils
Artikelbeschreibung: There are more species of weevils than of any other family of animals or plants on earth. The exact number is not known. In recent years, the family Curcu1ionidae, which once included all the weevils, has been subdivided and several smaller families have been split off from it, but even so the remaining Curcu1ionidae constitute the largest family in the world. A conservative estimate of the number of known weevil species is 40,000.

In Britain we have relatively few species, about 570, and there are more species of rove beetle (Staphylinidae) and parasitic wasps (Ichneumonidae) than of weevils. Nevertheless, the number of weevils is considerable, yet we seldom see them unless we actively search for them. How do we go about finding them?