The International Biological Programme (IPB), a world-wide plan of coordinated research on the biological basis of productivity and human welfare, covered terrestrial and aquatic environments, and ran for almost a decade from 1964. Recognising the need for guidance in methodology, the IBP arranged for the publication of a series of handbooks on techniques with the aim of achieving comparability of results all over theworld. One of these handbooks dealt with the study of marine benthos. It was targeted partly towards newcomers to the field, partly towards isolated workers who had no ready access to the literature, and partly towards those outside the topic whose work led them into.
