To say you are writing about rarity is to invite two kinds of response.
Either one provokes a discussion of what rarity is, or some comment on
the complex- ity of the subject. The objective of this book is to
explore the nature of rarity, its complexity if you like, from one
particular perspective on what rarity is. Primarily, it is an
opportunity to review, to synthesize, and to question. The book is an
attempt to draw together a vast body of literature, to extract from it
some general principles, and to raise question marks over areas the
founda- tions of which appear to be either absent or crumbling. A
perusal of prefaces suggests that they often dwell as long upon what a
book is not about, as upon what it does concern. True to such a
tradition, I should state that this is specifically not a book about
conservation, although in some quarters anything about rarity is viewed
as something about conser- vation. Nor does it contain more than a
passing reference to the undoubtedly important issues of the role of
genetics in rarity. Examples have been drawn from a wide variety of
taxa. They are, nonethe- less, somewhat depauperate in cases from marine
systems. In part this bias results from the unevenness of my familiarity
with the literature, in part it perhaps also reflects differences in the
questions asked and approaches to the study of communities and
assemblages in terrestrial and marine systems.