The Legacy of Tethys: An Aquatic Biogeography of the Levant

ISBN-13: 9789401069113 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 216 str.

F. D. Por

Opis

This book is an attempt to present a comprehensive view on the aquatic biogeog raphy of a small but very dynamic and complex area of the globe. Luckily, this area, called here the Levant, has attracted much interest in the past and is being increasingly studied in the present. The interphasing between the knowledge of the historical and formative processes and that of the recent distributional aspects is fairly good. The recent years saw also a widening effort which expressed itself in several symposia and monographic books. Therefore I considered it possible to treat the whole subject of the aquatic biogeography of the Levant singlehandedly rather than in the presently widespread manner of an edited book. I am keenly conscious of the shortcommings of my approach of presenting much second-hand information. Possibly this is being compensated by the fact that this book has a more coherent structure and eventually a clearer scientific message. The effort spent in synthesizing the data from the widely different sources hopefully pays off in a presentation which is more easily comprehended by the average reader. For the suspicious reader, I would recommend to read first the closing chapter of this book in which the quintescence of this book and its message is presented in a summariz ing manner."

Spis treści

1. Early Formative History.- 1.1. What happened to the Tethys Sea?.- 1.2. Putative Miocenic relics in the continental waters.- 1.3. The Messinian salinity crisis.- 1.4. The Pliocenic normalization event.- 2. The Pleistocene.- 2.1. The impact of the Plio-Pleistocenic tectonics.- 2.2. A fresh look at the Glacial chronology.- 2.3. The model of the last Glaciation applied to Levantine marine biogeography.- 2.4. Pluvials, Interpluvials and lake levels.- 2.5. Shifting rivers and captured headwaters.- 3. Eastern Mediterranean.- 3.1. The Levant Basin.- 3.2. Some oceanographic conditions.- 3.3. Depauperation of the zoobenthos.- 3.4. Levantine zooplankton.- 3.5. Positive features of the Levantine biota.- 3.6. The progress of the Lessepsian migrants.- 3.7. The impact of the Aswan high dam.- 4. Northern Red Sea and the Gulfs.- 4.1. The uniqueness of the Red Sea.- 4.2. Northern Red Sea and its metahaline past.- 4.3. Two Gulfs — two non-identical twins.- 4.4. Origin of biota and biotic provinciality.- 4.5. The problem of the Red Sea endemism.- 4.6. A warmwater deep-sea fauna.- 4.7. The paradox of the Gulf of Aqaba reefs.- 5. Halmyric Environments.- 5.1. Halmyrology — hydrobiology of waters with changing salinities.- 5.2. Anchialine environments of the Red Sea.- 5.3. Metahaline lagoons of the Red Sea.- 5.4. The Bitter Lake of the Isthmus of Suez.- 5.5. Halmyric lagoons of the Nile Delta.- 5.6. Residual brackish estuaries.- 6. The Continental Waters.- 6.1. Limnology in the Levant.- 6.2. The salty waters of the Jordan Valley.- 6.3. The Dead Sea or nearly so.- 6.4. Saline oasis springs.- 6.5. The Lower Jordan.- 6.6. Lake Kinneret — the Sea of Galilee.- 6.7. The Mesopotamian primary freshwater fauna.- 6.8. The separation of the river basins.- 6.9. River Orontes and its complex history.- 6.10. The Ethiopian connection.- 6.11. The Palearctic influx and its limitations.- 6.12. The Lebanese rivers.- 6.13. Lake Hula and the headwaters of the Jordan by Ch. Dimentman and F.D. Por.- 6.14. The limits of the Palearctic advance.- 6.15. The ephemerous waters of Israel and the Levant by Ch. Dimentman and F.D. Por.- 6.16. Polluted and manmade waterbodies by Ch. Dimentman and F.D. Por.- Postface: The Legacy of Tethys — Or the Guise of a Conclusion.- Geographical and Subject Index.- Authors Index.- Taxonomic Index.