Sprinkled through the floristic treatment are inset boxes on seaweed cultivation, which seem less appropriate to natural habitats than to the section on man-made substrates but also serve to tie the 'natural' and 'applied' sections together. These, plus related species mentioned but not illustrated, are indexed at the end of the volume. The second part, occupying one third of the volume, deals with various methods of enhancing subtidal biomass. The effects of various types of introduced substrata are then shown, from breakwaters to artificial reefs intended to attract lobsters and mollusks. Seaweed succession and its effect on the general community richness are shown, again in color photographs taken in situ.
Colored insets provide maps, sketches and various types of data.
The section concludes with a summary of reef development and diagrams of the various structures employed in different situations. The esthetic appeal of this book is undeniable as the photographs are for the most part superb, given the difficulty in capturing color and clarity from wet, light-reflecting algae, and they do justice to the rich diversity of Japanese marine vegetation. For the shore observer it is a wonderful browse, although there may be a tendency to associate certain species only with the region under which they are depicted unless one is careful to range through all the regions and note the distribution of each species. Serious students of taxonomy, as the preface rightly states, should use this volume in conjuction with the more technical treatments of Segawa, Chihara and others. The section on artificial substrate is not excessively technical but nonetheless potentially inspirational to biologists for whom aquaculture is a relatively new venture.