Marine Bioinvasions: Patterns, Processes and Perspectives

As the global rate of marine introductions increases, exotic species exert greater economic and ecological impacts, affecting ecosystems and human health. The complexity of marine ecosystems challenges our ability to find easy solutions to prevention, management, and control of introductions. This book highlights issues of timely importance in marine bioinvasion science. Selected topics explore the potential evolutionary consequences and ecological impacts of introduced organisms, examine the feasibility of biological control, and describe patterns of introduction. These papers were presented at the Second International Conference on Marine Bioinvasions, which featured new marine invasion research from around the world. These papers should be of interest to scientists, students, and managers with an interest in marine bioinvasions and the application of knowledge to management concerns.

Inhalt
Assessing the ecological impacts of an introduced seastar: the importance of multiple methods.- Native species vulnerability to introduced predators: testing an inducible defense and a refuge from predation.- Biotic resistance experienced by an invasive crustacean in a temperate estuary.- Alteration of microbial community composition and changes in decomposition associated with an invasive intertidal macrophyte.- Ecological and economic implications of a tropical jellyfish invader in the Gulf of Mexico.- Rapid evolution of an established feral tilapia (Oreochromis spp.): the need to incorporate invasion science into regulatory structures.- Estuarine and scalar patterns of invasion in the soft-bottom benthic communities of the San Francisco Estuary.- History of aquatic invertebrate invasions in the Caspian Sea.- Biological control of marine invasive species: cautionary tales and land-based lessons.- Did biological control cause extinction of the coconut moth, Levuana iridescens, in Fiji?.- Author index.