Abstract

The second edition of Biochemistry and Physiology of Protozoa has finally appeared 15 years after the first edition. There will be three volumes of which volumes 1 and 2 have been published. The second edition is a completely new set of subject matter of great breadth, and the 23 chapters set forth in these two volumes cover an enormous area of investigation. The editors M. Levandowsky and S. H. Hutner have assembled an excellent group of reviewers. Subject matter, to mention only a few, covers fine structure and phylogeny, protozoan pigments, and isoprenoid compounds, bioluminescence, sexuality in green flagellates, red tide phenomena, biological rhythms, and even learning in protozoa. Most of the 23 chapters are not of direct interest to workers in the field of Tropical Medicine and Public Health. However, several chapters are devoted to obligate or facultative protozoan endosymbionts.