Biological Invasions in Marine Ecosystems. Ecological, Management and Geographic Perspectives

Biological Invasions in Marine Ecosystems. Ecological, Management and Geographic Perspectives
G. Rilov & J.A. Crooks ( Eds ) Berlin : Springer , 2009 ; Ecological Studies , 204 pp. ISBN 978-3-540-79235-2 . £135.50/€192.55/$279.00 .

Marine invaders – knocking natural change off-course?

Rilov and Crooks have edited a valuable contribution to the Ecological Studies series. They have recruited the leading scientists in the field of marine non-native species studies to provide a volume that covers the major topics related to the ecology and the consequences of biological invasions in marine ecosystems. The book is thus important for scientists wishing to have an up-to-date summary of what is known about the ecology of marine invasive species and for managers who are charged with environmental protection and need to answer the question ‘will it matter’ and, if they decide that it will, to work out whether they can do anything about it.

The book is divided into Sections and each has a number of chapters. The first Section (‘Perspectives’) has a welcome scene-setting introductory chapter by the volume editors which emphasizes that marine bioinvasions are conservation hazards that may nevertheless provide a tool to understand natural processes. They also point to the likelihood that invasions are affecting evolutionary processes. The next three chapters are useful ‘think-pieces’, with James Carlton explaining the difficulties of estimating which species are introduced, Steve Lonhart describing natural and human-mediated range shifts including considering effects of climate change, and Marjorie Wonham and Mark Lewis demonstrating modeling approaches to understanding biological invasions. I mention those chapters specifically because they seem to be in Section I as they would not fit into the Sections that follow (‘Arrival’, ‘Establishment’, ‘Integration’, ‘Management’, ‘Geographic perspectives’ and ‘Concluding thoughts’). The style of each chapter is to review the literature and provide, in many instances, case studies that illustrate the points being made. Some more general ecological principles are also drawn into the text, helping greatly to clarify how the biology and ecosystem effects of non-native species fit-in to the established picture.

What is clear is that, especially in enclosed coastal areas, non-native species are here to stay and some of them have or will fundamentally alter the structure and functioning of natural communities and abundance of native species at a location. Some people might welcome the increase in species diversity in an area, but others will be dismayed that natural change and evolution has been knocked off-course and that ‘naturalness’, which is greatly valued in biodiversity conservation, is becoming an even rarer quality.

The chapters emphasize the enormous scale on which marine species are being moved out of their natural range to settle in another area of the world. I can see that a small proportion of those species become ‘pests’ or bring harmful associates such as disease – when they do, the impacts on aquaculture, recreation and local biodiversity can be devastating. So I am also pleased to see, in the Section on ‘Management’, that biosecurity measures can have a preventative effect. After all, we don’t know if the next biological invasion is going to bring disaster for native species and habitats, or for economic use of the marine environment.

The editors have given the authors a free hand in the terminology that they use, but I would have welcomed some precision in the use of ‘alien species’, ‘non-native species’, ‘non-indigenous species’, ‘invasive species’ and probably a few other variations (such as ‘pest species’) that I did not spot. There are useful indexes for species and for subjects. A glossary would have been helpful (but that would have forced a definition of the different terms used to describe species out of their natural range). Some authors have indulged in slightly obtuse titles (for instance ‘Deep invasion ecology’: a nevertheless fascinating account).

The book is not meant to be a textbook, but the material is there, with the addition of further summarizing diagrams, to make one.