Carbon and Nitrogen in the Terrestrial Environment

Being a trained ecologist, but a newcomer to the field of carbon and nitrogen dynamics, this book met my requirement for an easily accessible overview of the topic. It is essentially an expanded textbook: a 430 page review of current data, issues and approaches in the field of nitrogen and carbon in terrestrial ecosystems.Springer, however, should be embarrased by the number of typographical and grammatical errors in the book, including several on the first page. An inconsistent use of 'the' is particularly frustrating. Paragraph 1 of page 1 contains a sentence missing a the - "Flow of carbon occurs between different spheres, leading to what is generally termed carbon cycle". Then Paragraph 3 contains a sentence with an over-abundance of the word the - "As early as 1896, Arrhenius indicated the importance of CO2 in the air on the global temperature and calculated the alteration of temperature that would follow with the increase in CO2 concentration". Basic geographical errors also occur, such as mis-spelling of Gabon as Gabun, Madagascar as Madagaskar and Bangladesh as Bangla Desh.While one or two errors can easily be glossed over by a reader, the number of errors in this book makes me wonder whether a similar lapse in attention has occurred by the authors in their review and reporting of the literature. As a newcomer to the field I have no basis to judge otherwise, apart from referring to the original papers, thereby defeating my interest in the synthesized nature of this book. I fear I have wasted my money on this very expensive book.