Out of Eden
From AwardAnnals
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| Author(s) | Alan Burdick |
|---|---|
| Subtitle | An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Honors | |
| Now as never before, exotic animals and plants are crossing the globe, borne on the swelling tide of human traffic to places where nature never intended them to be. Bird-eating snakes from Australia hitchhike to Hawaii in the landing gear of airliners; disruptive European zebra mussels, riding in ships’ ballast water, are infiltrating aquatic ecosystems across the United States; parasitic flies from the U.S. prey on Darwin’s finches in the Galapagos. Predatory American jellyfish in Russia; toxic Japanese plankton in Australia; Burmese pythons in the… | |
Now as never before, exotic animals and plants are crossing the globe, borne on the swelling tide of human traffic to places where nature never intended them to be. Bird-eating snakes from Australia hitchhike to Hawaii in the landing gear of airliners; disruptive European zebra mussels, riding in ships’ ballast water, are infiltrating aquatic ecosystems across the United States; parasitic flies from the U.S. prey on Darwin’s finches in the Galapagos. Predatory American jellyfish in Russia; toxic Japanese plankton in Australia; Burmese pythons in the Everglades-biologists refer fearfully to “the homogenization of the world” as alien species jump from place to place and increasingly crowd native and endangered species out of existence. Never mind bulldozers and pesticides: the fastest-growing threat to biological diversity may be nature itself.
Out of Eden is a journey through this strange and shifting landscape. The author tours the front lines of ecological invasion—in Hawaii, Tasmania, Guam, San Francisco; in lush rainforests, through underground lava tubes, on the deck of an Alaska-bound oil tanker—in the company of world-class scientists. Wry and reflective, animated and richly reported, Out of Eden is a search both for scientific answers and for ecological authenticity.
Honors
Reviews
Barnes and Noble
Nature is on the move; ecology is in upheaval. Alan Burdick’s Out of Eden charts the dizzying transplantation of species in the age of globalization. Bird-eating snakes from Australia hitchhike to Hawaii in airplane landing gear; pesky European zebra mussels are swept into the ballast tanks of oceangoing ships and then discharged into American aquatic ecosystems; flies from the U.S. prey on Darwin’s finches in the Galápagos; predatory American jellyfish migrate to Russia; toxic Japanese plankton settle in Australia—the list goes on and on. As alien species jump from continent to continent, native species and intricate ecosystems are endangered. In fact, the fastest-growing threat to biological diversity may be fast-moving nature itself. A fascinating look at how we ultimately change our world.
