Monitoring in Coastal Environments Using Foraminifera and Thecamoebian Indicators

Book excerpt: Here is the first comprehensive book to describe specific environmental applications of foraminifera and thecamoebians. These organisms permit the biological characterization of a variety of freshwater and coastal marine environments and react quickly to environmental stress, natural or anthropogenic. Their small size and hard shells lead to preservation in large numbers in core samples, allowing their use as proxies to reconstruct past environmental conditions. The book introduces the topic to nonspecialists and then goes on to give detailed descriptions of the methods and techniques. Resource managers and consultants in the public and private sectors who routinely work on coastal environmental problems will find this book invaluable.