Ecological Stoichiometry: Biology of Elements from Molecules to the Biosphere.: Sterner, R. W. and Elser, J. J. (2002) Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, USA. $29.95. ISSN 0-691-07491-7.

How often do you read a book that has a large number of 'aha!' moments in every chapter?This is a significant piece of synthesis and scholarship that brings together a very large number of disciplines and disparate chunks of data into a very satisfying whole.The book is dense, thorough and revealing-a light and fast read it is not, but it is well worth the effort.The two authors each largely wrote different chapters-all credit to them and the editing job they did, because the style flows seamlessly from beginning to end.They even find time to fit in the odd quote and joke.In case we missed the point, each chapter ends with a summary and synthesis section together with a series of challenging questions for further thought and research.We are going to be chewing on some of these ideas for decades!Never before have I seen a book which spans the scales from molecular biology to ecosystems so effectively.The book begins with a number of basic definitions and a logical framework is laid out.This framework was derived from some simple axioms laid out by Reiners (Reiners, 1986).Effectively we are provided with a 'road map' before we begin-a guide to the structure and contents of the book.Then working up chapter by chapter-from cellular constituents, through autotrophs and heterotrophs, consumer-driven nutrient recycling, stoichiometry in communities, and finally ecosystems-the authors set out how a lot of what we see at the macro-scale is, in fact, a relatively simple function of underlying patterns in molecular properties, biochemistry, physiology and growth.I will admit to being a bit biased; I particularly liked the book because of the resonances with my own view that large-scale patterns in ecosystems emerge from the complex working out of small-scale physiology (Harris, 1999).However, I did not expect to see the evidence as completely and thoroughly documented as this.Much of what we see at the ecosystem level is based on the striking contrasts between the stoichiometry of animals and plants.Whereas plants tend to reflect the nutrient input (and hence show quite variable stoichiometries), animals are homeostatic and fixed in their strategies by their biochemistry.The authors develop some quite new ideas which link the genetics, molecular biology and physiology of heterotrophs to their stoichiometry, and hence are able effectively to link molecular stoichiometries in organisms to events at the ecosystem scale.