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ation that there might be a temptation to skip overthem. Conversely, every chapter includes ideas thatshould engage the reader. The food specializationshown by herbivorous insects is the concept at thecore of insect-plant interactions, but superimposedon this are mechanisms of stimulation and deterrencethat contribute to plant acceptability. The extent towhich insect sensory systems are finely tuned toplant chemistry has only recently been fully appre-ciated. It has even been suggested, for instance,that insect bioassays might serve as a taxonomicaid for distinguishing between closely-related planttaxa.

This book is a very useful introduction to a fascin-ating but complex field. One might question thebalance of material in places, for instance, the prac-tical questions of managing pest species by combin-ations of plant resistance and behavioural chemistryto my mind merit more space than part of a chapter.Also, there is comparatively little on the expandingfield of local and systemic plant responses to insectattack. The chapter on flowers, while fascinating,takes the book into different territory, involving forinstance pollination energetics and bee ecology. Butthis is a personal bias, and there is a great deal hereto whet the appetite of the reader, from the micro-scale of the insect olfactory system, to the macro-scale of insect populations in plant communities.The abiding message is that there are many morequestions than answers in the field of insect-plantinteractions, and this book will no doubt stimu-late a lot more interest and activity in a researcharea of wide relevance to agriculture, chemistry andbeyond.

John LucasIACR – Long Ashton Research Station

Bristol, U.K.

The Molecular Biology of Chloroplasts andMitochondria in Chlamydomonas. Edited byJ.-D. Rochaix, M. Goldschmidt-Clermont andS. Merchant. 1998. 733 pp. KIuwer AcademicPublishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands. GBP 199.00ISBN 0-7923-5174-6.

This book is the seventh volume in the series‘Advances in Photosynthesis’ with Govindjee as

series editor. Describing itself as an ambitiousundertaking the series seeks to provide a detailed andstate-of-the-art account of photosynthesis research.This book aims to present a comprehensive overviewof current research with the so-called ‘green yeast’,Chlamydomonas, with special emphasis on theassembly and structure/function relationships ofthe components of the photosynthetic apparatus.Contributors have been encouraged to highlightthe particular features that make this organismuniquely suitable for studying photosynthesis and theregulatory mechanisms which operate under variousenvironmental and stress conditions. Althoughthe organism is also a useful research tool for theinvestigation of the structure, assembly and functionof flagella, this topic is not included.

The book is loosely divided into four parts.The first chapter provides a general introduction toChlamydomonas and this is followed by an historicalchapter on early research. Further articles on nucleargenome organization nuclear transformation, mito-chondrial and chloroplast genome evolution follow.Attention is then focused on the chloroplast as thefirst part concludes with contributions on unipar-ental inheritance, DNA metabolism and transforma-tion and reverse genetics. The second part focuseson chloroplast gene expression with chapters on RNAstability, processing, splicing and translation whilechapter 13 discusses protein targeting in the chloro-plast. Part three is concerned with the photosyn-thetic architecture with articles on the biosynthesis andfunction of thylakoid membranes preceding chapterswhich deal with the multi-component complexes:Photosystem II; Photosystem I; LHC II; cytochromeb6f complex; ATP synthase and ribulose 1,5 bisphos-phate carboxylase/oxygenase. A description of theferredoxin/thioredoxin redox system, which regulatesa number of key metabolic processes is of partic-ular interest as there is currently much researchactivity in this area. Also included in this sectionare articles on the pigments and glycerolipids andtwo chapters which describe new and powerfultechniques for the measurement of photosyntheticactivity in vivo. The fourth part includes articleson CO2 uptake and starch biosynthesis. Chaptersdescribing the response of Chlamydomonas to variousstress conditions (high light, copper deficiency andmacronutrient deprivation) follow and lead into anarticle on nitrogen assimilation. After a chapter whichdescribes mitochondrial genetics, there is a discus-sion of the current models of chlororespiration and the

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book concludes with a perspective on research withChlamydomonas.

Although aimed primarily at graduate students andnewcomers to the field, researchers at all levels shouldfind this a valuable reference source. This is another

excellent book in an excellent series and must berecommended to relevant libraries.

Simon GilbertIACR – Long Ashton Research Station

Bristol, U.K.