The Flagellates: Unity, Diversity and Evolution, edited by B. S. C. Leadbeater and J. C. Green. Taylor and Francis, New York. 2000. 401 p. Hardcover, $130.00.
Flagellates are indeed diverse, but insofar as there is ample evidence of broad paraphyly of “Flagellata,” if not polyphyly, it would be hard to imagine any biological unity for a treatment of these protists. Not surprisingly, and despite the subtitle of Leadbeater and Green's The Flagellates, there is no unity flowing from this work and there is precious little evolution. Where authors of the 17 chapters concern themselves with functional and ecological diversity, the book reads well and provides a good overview of important questions. Specifically, Chapters 5, 7, and 8 regarding the role of centrin, signal transduction of light, and trophic strategies, respectively, each provide reasonable summaries of knowledge available at the time of printing, but each lacks any evolutionary perspective...