Oceans drive the world’s climate, nurture marine ecosystems full of aquatic life, and provide shipping lanes that have defined the global economy for centuries. And few realize that half of the world’s population lives in a coastal region within easy reach of one. Yet human activities such as commercial fishing, coastal real estate development, and industrial pollution have taken their toll on the seas. The first book of its kind, The Atlas of Coasts and Oceans documents the fraught relationship between humans and the earth’s largest bodies of water—and outlines the conservation steps needed to protect the marine environment for generations to come.
The Atlas offers a fascinating and often sobering account of how urbanization, climate change, offshore oil drilling, shipping routes, global tourism, and maritime conflict have had a profound impact on the world’s oceans and coasts. Combining text and images in visually engaging, thematically organized map spreads, this volume addresses the ecological, environmental, and economic importance of marine phenomena such as coral reefs, eroding shorelines, hurricanes, and fish populations—and how development threatens to destroy the ultimate source of all life on the “blue planet.” Lavishly illustrated with global and regional maps, from the Arabian Gulf to the Great Barrier Reef, from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and all the other major global waterways, The Atlas of Coasts and Oceans will be the definitive companion to any study of its subject for years to come.
Nearly 60% of the world's population lives and works within 100 miles of a coast, and even those who don't are connected to the world's oceans through an intricate drainage of rivers and streams. Ultimately the whole of humankind is coastal.
Coastal Waters of the World is a comprehensive reference source on the state of the world's coastal areas. It focuses on the tremendous pressures facing coastal areas and the management systems and strategies needed to cope with them. Don Hinrichsen explores the origins and implications of three related issues: the overwhelming threats to our coastal resources and seas from population and pollution; the destruction of critical resources through unsustainable economic activity; and the inability of governments to craft and implement rational coastal management plans.
Introductory chapters present a concise summary of our coastal problems, including coastal habitat degradation and the fisheries crisis, along with a discussion of better management options. Three case studies of successful coastal governance focus on some of the problems and bring to life potential solutions. Following that are regional profiles that provide detailed information on the main population, resource, and management challenges facing each of the world's thirteen major coastal waters and seas. The profiles are presented in a standard format to allow for ease of comparison between regions, and accessibility of information. The book ends with a realistic and practical agenda for action that can be implemented immediately.
Safeguarding these complex, interlinked ecosystems is humanity's most challenging management job. Coastal Waters of the World will help raise our awareness of coastal area concerns and provide a constructive contribution to the ongoing debate over how to manage these ever-changing areas, both for ourselves and for future generations. It will serve as a valuable reference tool and an up-to-date resource for policymakers, management specialists, and students interested in sustainable coastal governance.
On dry land, most organisms are confined to the surface, or at most to altitudes of a hundred meters—the height of the tallest trees. In the oceans, though, living space has both vertical and horizontal dimensions: with an average depth of 3800 meters, the oceans offer 99% of the space on Earth where life can develop. And the deep sea, which has been immersed in total darkness since the dawn of time, occupies 85% of ocean space, forming the planet’s largest habitat. Yet these depths abound with mystery. The deep sea is mostly uncharted—only about 5 percent of the seafloor has been mapped with any reasonable degree of detail—and we know very little about the creatures that call it home. Current estimates about the number of species yet to be found vary between ten and thirty million. The deep sea no longer has anything to prove; it is without doubt Earth’s largest reservoir of life.
Combining the latest scientific discoveries with astonishing color imagery, The Deep takes readers on a voyage into the darkest realms of the ocean. Revealing nature’s oddest and most mesmerizing creatures in crystalline detail, The Deep features more than two hundred color photographs of terrifying sea monsters, living fossils, and ethereal bioluminescent creatures, some photographed here for the very first time. Accompanying these breathtaking photographs are contributions from some of the world’s most respected researchers that examine the biology of deep-sea organisms, the ecology of deep-sea habitats, and the history of deep-sea exploration.
An unforgettable visual and scientific tour of the teeming abyss, The Deep celebrates the incredible diversity of life on Earth and will captivate anyone intrigued by the unseen—and unimaginable—creatures of the deep sea.
If humankind were given a mandate to do everything in our power to undermine the earth's functioning, we could hardly do a better job than we have in the past thirty years on the world's oceans, both by what we are putting into it-millions of tons of trash and toxic materials-and by what we are taking out of it-millions of tons of wildlife. Yet only recently have we begun to understand the scale of those impacts.
Defying Ocean's End is the result of an unprecedented effort among the world's largest environmental organizations, scientists, the business community, media, and international governments to address these marine issues. In June 2003, in the culmination of a year-long effort, they met specifically to develop a comprehensive and achievable agenda to reverse the decline in health of the world's oceans.
As conservation organizations begin to expand their focus from land issues to include a major focus on preservation of the sea, it is increasingly apparent that we have to approach marine conservation differently and at much larger scale than we have to date. What's also clear is the magnitude and immediacy of the growing ocean concerns are such that no one organization can handle the job alone.
Defying Ocean's End is a bold step in bringing the resources needed to bear on this vast problem before it is too late. It offers a broad strategy, a practical plan with priorities and costs, aimed at mobilizing the forces needed to bring about a "sea change" of favorable attitudes, actions, and outcomes for the oceans-and for all of us.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, as scientists explored the frontiers of polar regions and the atmosphere, the ocean remained silent and inaccessible. The history of how this changed—of how the depths became a scientific passion and a cultural obsession, an engineering challenge and a political attraction—is the story that unfolds in Fathoming the Ocean.
In a history at once scientific and cultural, Helen Rozwadowski shows us how the Western imagination awoke to the ocean's possibilities—in maritime novels, in the popular hobby of marine biology, in the youthful sport of yachting, and in the laying of a trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. The ocean emerged as important new territory, and scientific interests intersected with those of merchant-industrialists and politicians. Rozwadowski documents the popular crazes that coincided with these interests—from children's sailor suits to the home aquarium and the surge in ocean travel. She describes how, beginning in the 1860s, oceanography moved from yachts onto the decks of oceangoing vessels, and landlubber naturalists found themselves navigating the routines of a working ship's physical and social structures.
Fathoming the Ocean offers a rare and engaging look into our fascination with the deep sea and into the origins of oceanography—origins still visible in a science that focuses the efforts of physicists, chemists, geologists, biologists, and engineers on the common enterprise of understanding a vast, three-dimensional, alien space.
As much as one-tenth of the world’s oceans are covered with sea ice, or frozen ocean water, at some point during the annual cycle. Sea ice thus plays an important, often defining, role in the natural environment and the global climate system. This book is a global look at the changes in sea ice and the tools and techniques used to measure and record those changes. The first comprehensive research done on sea-ice field techniques, this volume will be indispensable for the study of northern sea ice and a must-have for scientists in the field of climate change research.
Fisheries management today is highly contentious. The interests of fishers and fish processors, coastal communities, the government, and environmental organizations are often different and can even be mutually incompatible.
Fishing Grounds offers a comprehensive assessment of the legal, social, economic and biological context of marine fisheries management in the United States. Drawing on interviews with stakeholders from all sides of the issue, the authors seek common ground -- and points of unresolved controversy -- among the diversity of interests and viewpoints involved. Chapters examine:
Fishing Grounds presents a useful overview of fisheries management options and positions regarding those options, providing valuable insight into the opinions and concerns of stakeholders and the sets of incentives to which those stakeholders respond. It is an important work for fisheries management professionals in industry, government agencies, and nongovernmental organizations, as well as for students and researchers involved with fisheries and fisheries management.
The United States is about to embark on the most thorough reconsideration of its ocean policy in more than three decades. With 1998 designated as the International Year of the Ocean by the United Nations, and with both the executive branch and the Congress currently working toward developing new approaches to formulating and implementing ocean policy, a comprehensive overview of key issues and concerns is essential.
The Future of U.S. Ocean Policy provides such an overview, with an in-depth analysis of the evolution of U.S. ocean policy and a timely discussion of the most important ocean and coastal issues facing the nation. The book assesses the current status of ocean policy, examines national and international trends, and considers choices for policymakers in the 21st century. Following an introductory chapter that reviews national ocean policy and the process by which it is made, the authors:
The Future of U.S. Ocean Policy is the only recent book that focuses on national ocean policy in its entirety, and will play an important role in upcoming debates concerning the future direction of policy initiatives. Agency personnel, members and staff of nongovernmental organizations, industry groups, Congressional staffers, state and local government officials, academics, and concerned citizens will find the book an invaluable guide, as will students and faculty in courses in marine and coastal management and in environmental management.
Recent decades have been marked by the decline or collapse of one fishery after another around the world, from swordfish in the North Atlantic to orange roughy in the South Pacific. While the effects of a collapse on local economies and fishing-dependent communities have generated much discussion, little attention has been paid to its impacts on the overall health of the ocean's ecosystems.
In a Perfect Ocean: The State of Fisheries and Ecosystems in the North Atlantic Ocean presents the first empirical assessment of the status of ecosystems in the North Atlantic ocean. Drawing on a wide range of studies including original research conducted for this volume, the authors analyze 14 large marine ecosystems to provide an indisputable picture of an ocean whose ecology has been dramatically altered, resulting in a phenomenon described by the authors as "fishing down the food web." The book:
This is the first in a series of assessments by the world's leading marine scientists, entitled "The State of the World's Oceans." In a Perfect Ocean: The State of Fisheries and Ecosystems in the North Atlantic Ocean is a landmark study, the first of its kind to make a comprehensive, ecosystem-based assessment of the North Atlantic Ocean, and will be essential reading for policymakers at the state, national, and international level concerned with fisheries management, as well for scientists, researchers, and activists concerned with marine issues or fishing and the fisheries industry.
Biliana Cicin-Sain and Robert W. Knecht are co-directors of the Center for the Study of Marine Policy at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware and co-authors of The Future of U.S. Ocean Policy (Island Press, 1998).
Long before GPS, Google Earth, and global transit, humans traveled vast distances using only environmental clues and simple instruments. John Huth asks what is lost when modern technology substitutes for our innate capacity to find our way. Encyclopedic in breadth, weaving together astronomy, meteorology, oceanography, and ethnography, The Lost Art of Finding Our Way puts us in the shoes, ships, and sleds of early navigators for whom paying close attention to the environment around them was, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
Haunted by the fate of two young kayakers lost in a fog bank off Nantucket, Huth shows us how to navigate using natural phenomena—the way the Vikings used the sunstone to detect polarization of sunlight, and Arab traders learned to sail into the wind, and Pacific Islanders used underwater lightning and “read” waves to guide their explorations. Huth reminds us that we are all navigators capable of learning techniques ranging from the simplest to the most sophisticated skills of direction-finding. Even today, careful observation of the sun and moon, tides and ocean currents, weather and atmospheric effects can be all we need to find our way.
Lavishly illustrated with nearly 200 specially prepared drawings, Huth’s compelling account of the cultures of navigation will engross readers in a narrative that is part scientific treatise, part personal travelogue, and part vivid re-creation of navigational history. Seeing through the eyes of past voyagers, we bring our own world into sharper view.
Pioneered in the late 1980s, the concept of macroecology—a framework for studying ecological communities with a focus on patterns and processes—revolutionized the field. Although this approach has been applied mainly to terrestrial ecosystems, there is increasing interest in quantifying macroecological patterns in the sea and understanding the processes that generate them. Taking stock of the current work in the field and advocating a research agenda for the decades ahead, Marine Macroecology draws together insights and approaches from a diverse group of scientists to show how marine ecology can benefit from the adoption of macroecological approaches.
Divided into three parts, Marine Macroecology first provides an overview of marine diversity patterns and offers case studies of specific habitats and taxonomic groups. In the second part, contributors focus on process-based explanations for marine ecological patterns. The third part presents new approaches to understanding processes driving the macroecolgical patterns in the sea. Uniting unique insights from different perspectives with the common goal of identifying and understanding large-scale biodiversity patterns, Marine Macroecology will inspire the next wave of marine ecologists to approach their research from a macroecological perspective.
Conventional fishery management practices have failed to prevent the collapse of numerous fish stocks around the world. Amid growing concern about our ability to protect marine biodiversity and ecosystem integrity, scientists and managers alike are seeking alternative management tools. One of the most promising of those is no-take marine reserves -- areas of the sea where all consumptive use of natural resources is prohibited.
Marine Reserves is the first guidebook on no-take marine reserves, providing a synthesis of information on the underlying science, as well as design and implementation issues. The book, by Jack Sobel and Craig Dahlgren, describes the need for marine reserves and their potential benefits, examines how reserves can be designed to achieve specific objectives, and considers gaps in our knowledge and the research needed to address those gaps. Chapters examine: marine biological and geophysical issues relevant to reserve design; potential economic and biological benefits of marine reserves, and the likelihood of achieving them; influence of social and economic factors on reserve design and implementation; lessons learned from past efforts to establish marine reserves.
Also included are three case studies from California, Belize, and the Bahamas, as well as a review of experiences globally across a broad range of geographical locations, socioeconomic conditions, and marine environments. Case studies provide background on the history of marine reserves in each location, the process by which reserves were created, and the effect of the reserves on marine populations and communities as well as on human communities.
Marine Reserves represents an invaluable guide for fishery managers and marine protected area managers in creating and implementing effective marine reserves, and an accessible reference for environmentalists and others concerned with the conservation of marine resources. It will also be useful in undergraduate and graduate courses in marine ecology, fisheries, marine policy, and related fields.
An eyewitness to profound change affecting marine environments on the Newfoundland coast, Antony Adler argues that the history of our relationship with the ocean lies as much in what we imagine as in what we discover.
We have long been fascinated with the oceans, seeking “to pierce the profundity” of their depths. In studying the history of marine science, we also learn about ourselves. Neptune’s Laboratory explores the ways in which scientists, politicians, and the public have invoked ocean environments in imagining the fate of humanity and of the planet—conjuring ideal-world fantasies alongside fears of our species’ weakness and ultimate demise.
Oceans gained new prominence in the public imagination in the early nineteenth century as scientists plumbed the depths and marine fisheries were industrialized. Concerns that fish stocks could be exhausted soon emerged. In Europe these fears gave rise to internationalist aspirations, as scientists sought to conduct research on an oceanwide scale and nations worked together to protect their fisheries. The internationalist program for marine research waned during World War I, only to be revived in the interwar period and again in the 1960s. During the Cold War, oceans were variously recast as battlefields, post-apocalyptic living spaces, and utopian frontiers.
The ocean today has become a site of continuous observation and experiment, as probes ride the ocean currents and autonomous and remotely operated vehicles peer into the abyss. Embracing our fears, fantasies, and scientific investigations, Antony Adler tells the story of our relationship with the seas.
A new environmental movement is emerging to help combat threats to America's oceans and coasts, with hundreds of local and regional groups as well as dozens of national and international organizations being formed. The Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide represents a comprehensive guide to this new "Blue Movement."
This one-of-a-kind new reference details more than 2,000 organizations and institutions that are working to understand, protect, and restore our ocean and coastal areas. For each entry, the book gives contact information including phone and fax numbers, email addresses, web addresses and a brief description of program areas of interest. Along with the state-by-state listings of groups, the directory includes three detailed sections that identify relevant government agencies, academic marine programs, and marine and coastal parks and protected areas.
To be published biennially, The Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide is a vital new resource for anyone interested in the growing community of people working to protect and restore our coastal lands and waters.
Oceans 2020 presents a comprehensive assessment of the most important science and societal issues that are likely to arise in marine science and ocean management in the next twenty years. Sponsored by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR), and the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), the book brings together the world's leading ocean scientists and researchers to analyze the state of marine science and technology, identify key scientific issues for sustainable development, and evaluate the capability of scientists, governments, and private-sector stakeholders to respond to those issues. Topics include:
Oceans 2020 suggests what can be done about major marine environmental issues through the better development and application of marine science and technology, focusing on the issues that are most closely related to human and sustainable development. It will help guide countries in developing their marine science and technology strategies and priorities and is an essential source of information for policymakers, government officials, resource managers, scientists, the media, and all those concerned with the current and future health of the oceans.
The concept of environmental security, drawing on the widely understood notion of international strategic interdependence (in facing, for example, threats of nuclear war or economic collapse) is gaining currency as a way of thinking about international environmental management.
In 1989, the Institute for World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Marine Policy Center of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution instituted a joint project to examine environmental security as it applies to the world's oceans. The Oceans and Environmental Security is a unified expression of their findings.
The oceans, as global commons, are of central importance to issues of international environmental security. Critical problems are those that are likely to destabilize normal relations between nations and provoke international countermeasures. As such, the book focuses on seven specific concerns:
The Rising Tide is the first analysis of global warming and world sea level rise. It outlines state, national, and international actions to respond to the effects of global warming on coastal communities and ecosystems.
A continuing, comprehensive and timely survey of the state of knowledge of ocean science, this distinguished series provides an overview of research frontiers as ocean science progresses. Areas covered include physical, biological, and chemical oceanography, marine geology, and geophysics and the interactions of the oceans with the atmosphere, the solid earth, and ice. Because ocean science is evolving so rapidly, straining the boundaries of traditional sub-disciplines, interdisciplinary topics have a special place in this series--including those topics related to the application of ocean science, for example, to ocean technology, marine operations, and the resources of the sea. As a treatise on advances and new developments, each topical volume starts with fundamentals and covers recent progress, so as to provide a balanced account of how oceanography is evolving.
Previous volumes (1-12) in the series are now available from Harvard University Press.
In the manifold, multidisciplinary efforts of science to understand and manage our planet, contemporary ocean science plays an essential role. Volumes 13 and 14 of the series The Sea focus on two of the most important components in the interdisciplinary field of ocean science today--the coastal ocean and its interactions with the deep sea, and coupled physical-biogeochemical and ecosystem dynamics.
Comprehensive, definitive studies, these volumes chart the real progress being made by ocean scientists in achieving lasting scientific understanding; specifically, they address issues surrounding significant applications--for coastal regions and in general--such as: the development of monitoring and prediction systems; functionality and stability of ecosystems; eutrophication; harmful algae blooms; habitat modification; and regime shift.
Intended as companion volumes to Volumes 10 and 11 on physical coastal oceanography, these studies of the global coastal ocean continue the series' overall effort to encourage and facilitate coastal and shelf ocean sciences and technology on a global basis.
A continuing, comprehensive and timely survey of the state of knowledge of ocean science, this distinguished series provides an overview of research frontiers as ocean science progresses. Areas covered include physical, biological, and chemical oceanography, marine geology, and geophysics and the interactions of the oceans with the atmosphere, the solid earth, and ice. Because ocean science is evolving so rapidly, straining the boundaries of traditional sub-disciplines, interdisciplinary topics have a special place in this series--including those topics related to the application of ocean science, for example, to ocean technology, marine operations, and the resources of the sea. As a treatise on advances and new developments, each topical volume starts with fundamentals and covers recent progress, so as to provide a balanced account of how oceanography is evolving.
Previous volumes (1-13) in the series are now available from Harvard University Press.
In the manifold, multidisciplinary efforts of science to understand and manage our planet, contemporary ocean science plays an essential role. Volumes 13 and 14 of the series The Sea focus on two of the most important components in the interdisciplinary field of ocean science today--the coastal ocean and its interactions with the deep sea, and coupled physical-biogeochemical and ecosystem dynamics.
Comprehensive, definitive studies, these volumes chart the real progress being made by ocean scientists in achieving lasting scientific understanding; specifically, they address issues surrounding significant applications--for coastal regions and in general--such as: the development of monitoring and prediction systems; functionality and stability of ecosystems; eutrophication; harmful algae blooms; habitat modification; and regime shift.
Intended as companion volumes to Volumes 10 and 11 on physical coastal oceanography, these studies of the global coastal ocean continue the series' overall effort to encourage and facilitate coastal and shelf ocean sciences and technology on a global basis.
Download PDF of corrected version of Chapter 32
A continuing, comprehensive and timely survey of the state of knowledge of ocean science, this distinguished series provides an overview of research frontiers as ocean science progresses. Areas covered include physical, biological, and chemical oceanography, marine geology, and geophysics and the interactions of the oceans with the atmosphere, the solid earth, and ice. Because ocean science is evolving so rapidly, straining the boundaries of traditional sub-disciplines, interdisciplinary topics have a special place in this series--including those topics related to the application of ocean science, for example, to ocean technology, marine operations, and the resources of the sea. As a treatise on advances and new developments, each topical volume starts with fundamentals and covers recent progress, so as to provide a balanced account of how oceanography is evolving.
Previous volumes (1-13) in the series are now available from Harvard University Press.
In the manifold, multidisciplinary efforts of science to understand and manage our planet, contemporary ocean science plays an essential role. Volumes 13 and 14 of the series The Sea focus on two of the most important components in the interdisciplinary field of ocean science today--the coastal ocean and its interactions with the deep sea, and coupled physical-biogeochemical and ecosystem dynamics.
Comprehensive, definitive studies, these volumes chart the real progress being made by ocean scientists in achieving lasting scientific understanding; specifically, they address issues surrounding significant applications--for coastal regions and in general--such as: the development of monitoring and prediction systems; functionality and stability of ecosystems; eutrophication; harmful algae blooms; habitat modification; and regime shift.
Intended as companion volumes to Volumes 10 and 11 on physical coastal oceanography, these studies of the global coastal ocean continue the series' overall effort to encourage and facilitate coastal and shelf ocean sciences and technology on a global basis.
With the recent catastrophe in Indonesia, the topic of tsunamis could not be more timely. This book, volume fifteen in a distinguished series surveying the frontiers of ocean science and research, looks at every aspect of the current science of tsunamis. The world’s foremost experts write about the dynamics of geophysical processes involved in tsunami generation, propagation, and inundation, along with the statistical and geophysical properties of tsunami recurrence, and their application to tsunami forecasts and warnings. Together, their work constitutes the first comprehensive overview of a topic of paramount importance in ocean science today. Coinciding with the recent completion of the United States, enhanced tsunami warning program—which will provide an unprecedented volume of data on tsunamis in the deep ocean—this book will help crystallize a research agenda and foster the study of this critical issue in our understanding of the sea.
In the manifold, multidisciplinary efforts of science to understand and manage our planet, contemporary ocean science plays an essential role. This new volume in the series The Sea advances these efforts with a clear focus on one of the ocean’s more significant deadly phenomena.
With marine ecosystems endangered by a warming climate and exploding human population growth, a critical transformation is taking place in the way the world's ocean resources are managed. Marine Ecosystem-Based Management presents a state-of-the-art synopsis of the conservation approaches that are currently being translated from theory to action on a global scale. With contributions from an international team of experts, this volume synthesizes the scientific literature of holistic practices in ecosystem-based management (EBM), focusing on protecting the marine ecologies that humans and countless other organisms vitally depend upon.
Human uses of ocean ecosystems have usually been divided into separate sectors--fisheries, transportation, tourism, and recreation, for example--and ecosystem boundaries defined as much by politics as geography. This approach is giving way to a broader strategy based on integrated management of human activities in scientifically identified regions of the marine environment. Spanning a range of issues from the tropics to the poles, the authors present analyses of open ocean systems and high-impact regions such as coastlines, coral reefs, and estuaries. Methods of modeling and evaluating marine EBM are explored, as well as the role of governmental and other regulatory frameworks in ocean management and the lessons to be learned from past ecological interventions.
It is now widely recognized that any viable strategy for sustaining the world's oceans must reflect the relationships among all ecosystem components, human and nonhuman species included. Marine Ecosystem-Based Management is an in-depth report of new advances in the rapidly evolving discipline of coupled Human-Ecological Systems.
We have long lorded over the ocean. But only recently have we become aware of the myriad life-forms beneath its waves. We now know that this delicate ecosystem is our life-support system; it regulates the earth’s temperatures and climate and comprises 99 percent of living space on earth. So when we change the chemistry of the whole ocean system, as we are now, life as we know it is threatened.
In Seasick, veteran science journalist Alanna Mitchell dives beneath the surface of the world’s oceans to give readers a sense of how this watery realm can be managed and preserved, and with it life on earth. Each chapter features a different group of researchers who introduce readers to the importance of ocean currents, the building of coral structures, or the effects of acidification. With Mitchell at the helm, readers submerge 3,000 feet to gather sea sponges that may contribute to cancer care, see firsthand the lava lamp–like dead zone covering 17,000 square kilometers in the Gulf of Mexico, and witness the simultaneous spawning of corals under a full moon in Panama.
The first book to look at the planetary environmental crisis through the lens of the global ocean, Seasick takes the reader on an emotional journey through a hidden realm of the planet and urges conservation and reverence for the fount from which all life on earth sprang.
When viewed from a quiet beach, the ocean, with its rolling waves and vast expanse, can seem calm, even serene. But hidden beneath the sea’s waves are a staggering abundance and variety of active creatures, engaged in the never-ending struggles of life—to reproduce, to eat, and to avoid being eaten.
With Sex, Drugs, and Sea Slime, marine scientist Ellen Prager takes us deep into the sea to introduce an astonishing cast of fascinating and bizarre creatures that make the salty depths their home. From the tiny but voracious arrow worms whose rapacious ways may lead to death by overeating, to the lobsters that battle rivals or seduce mates with their urine, to the sea’s masters of disguise, the octopuses, Prager not only brings to life the ocean’s strange creatures, but also reveals the ways they interact as predators, prey, or potential mates. And while these animals make for some jaw-dropping stories—witness the sea cucumber, which ejects its own intestines to confuse predators, or the hagfish that ties itself into a knot to keep from suffocating in its own slime—there’s far more to Prager’s account than her ever-entertaining anecdotes: again and again, she illustrates the crucial connections between life in the ocean and humankind, in everything from our food supply to our economy, and in drug discovery, biomedical research, and popular culture.
Written with a diver’s love of the ocean, a novelist’s skill at storytelling, and a scientist’s deep knowledge, Sex, Drugs, and Sea Slime enchants as it educates, enthralling us with the wealth of life in the sea—and reminding us of the need to protect it.
The Silent Deep tells the story of the exploration and discovery of the deep sea, the ecology of its diverse environments, and the impact of humans, highlighting the importance of global stewardship in keeping this delicate ecosystem alive and well. Written by world renowned deep-sea ecologist Tony Koslow, this book is a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the state of the deep sea today, accessible to anyone interested in ocean science, the story of scientific discovery, and conservation of the earth’s most threatened ecosystems.
“Koslow deals a decisive blow to the notion that the deep sea can ever be immune from unregulated human activities. . . . The historical review of deep-sea biology is the most comprehensive I have ever read.”—Adrian Glover, Times Literary Supplement
“Deeply informed by history and rendered in straightforward, careful prose.”—Anthony Doerr, Boston Globe
“This beautifully produced book tells an urgent story with clarity and grace.”—Choice
“Stands apart from other books about life in the abyss due to Tony Koslow’s thoughtful accounts. . . . [He] succeeds in painting a picture of the deep sea as an environment with inherent and threatened value.”—Science
“Textbook depth on all aspects of deep-sea science and conservation. . . . [An] exhaustively researched and referenced volume with a historical review stretching back to Socrates.”—Mark Schrope, Nature
“An important textbook and viewpoint that is highly recommended for anyone with a professional or personal interest in deep-sea ecosystems.”—Quarterly Review of Biology
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