View article

Robert Robins and his coauthors have compiled a truly unique book on the fishes that inhabit freshwaters of Florida. A comprehensive volume, the book is organized exceptionally well. The introduction presents an overview of the fish families and species represented, as well as a summary of the characteristics of freshwater systems in Florida (eg, rainfall patterns, surface/groundwater sources, types of systems, and interjurisdictional nature of the systems with Alabama and Georgia). They follow this overview with a comprehensive set of tables that list all species found in every river/lake basin in the state. This summary puts the species occurrence knowledge at the readers’ fingertips, which is excellent as a field guide and summarizes the spatial distribution of each species in a concise manner.

Throughout this book, the authors acknowledged two key attributes of Florida’s freshwater fish communities:(1) that …