Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion
by Alan Burdick
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"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 hitchhike to Hawaii in the landing gear of airliners; pernicious European zebra mussels, riding in ships' ballast water, disrupt aquatic ecosystems across the United States; feral camels plague Australia, as do poisonous foreign toads; giant Indonesian pythons lurk beneath homes in suburban Miami. As alien show more species jump from place to place and increasingly crowd native and endangered species out of existence, biologists speak fearfully of "the homogenization of the world." The fastest-growing threat to biological diversity, they contend, may be nature itself." "Out of Eden is a personal journey through this strange and shifting landscape. Alan Burdick routs the front lines of ecological invasion: in Hawaii, Tasmania, Guam, San Francisco; in lush rain forests, through underground lava tubes, aboard an Alaska-bound oil tanker, inside a spacecraft-assembly facility at NASA. He follows world-class scientists - invasion biologists, "mix-o-ecologist"--And a global cast of alien species to ask: What exactly is nature? What in natural?"--Jacket. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
A fascinating tale of brown tree snakes, zebra mussels, alien shrubs and Hawaiian birds. It does leave one with the thought that eventually, plant and animal life will become homogenous across the continents, and local flora and fauna will either be squeezed out or learn to migrate. Still, there's a ray of optimism shining through this book as seen through the eyes of the scientists who battle alien invaders to their local ecosystems. As an added bonus, who knew scientists could be so cool?
I really liked the premise of the book ... that plants and animals, moved into new ecological surroundings, can have profound impacts on their new homes. It was also interesting to realize that it's hard to define a "native" species of plant or animal; many of the things we would today consider native are truly transplants from another place in another time.
I found the book hard to get through at times, though, and felt that it dragged.
I found the book hard to get through at times, though, and felt that it dragged.
Really, really boring.
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Author Information
7 Works 489 Members
Awards and Honors
Awards
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion
- Original publication date
- 2005
- Epigraph
- Why, Cdmus, why stare at the snake you've slain?
You too shall be a snake and stared at.
- Ovid, Metamorphosis - Dedication
- To Mary and Robert, for the roots
- First words
- Out of the blue, a red fuse: Hawaii.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"It's tough," he says. "But that's where our intelligence comes in."
- Original language
- English US
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 217
- Popularity
- 150,394
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.59)
- Languages
- English, Italian
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 4
