The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants

Elton's classic is without peer. What is enraging to me is that, with this much evidence of an inherent problem to unrestricted introductions, they continue apace with ubiquitous and catastrophic consequences. Little has been done to stem the tide, with much of the damage done by those claiming to care about the environ-mint.All that aside, what is missing from Elton's analysis is his clear oversight of the importance of hunter gatherers to mantaining diverse life systems in lands upon which they've lived for thousands of years. People living off the land absolutely needed all of the plant and animal resources they required for life to be within walking distance. People develop knowledge with which to introduce periodic disturbance with which to build stability in systems that would otherwise succeed to higher seres until the point of catastrophic failure, with significant loss of early successional species. Elton, with his Darwinian faith in self optimizing systems fails to recognize even the possibility of humans as keystone species. Therewith is likelihood that said oversight might just be a legacy of British conquest and acquisition.

A surprisingly delightful read! Young ecologists won't have to dread this 1958 classic when it's assigned reading. It's dense with examples, not with theories and jargon, and has enough conversational wit to keep you going."If there had been a Cretaceous child living at the time the chalk was deposited in the warm shallow seas at Marlborough or Dover, he would have read in his book, or slate perhaps: 'Very large dinosaurs occur all over the world except in New Zealand; keep out of their way.' Or that water monsters occurred in more than one loch in the world. In fact, zoogeographically, it would have been rather a dull book, though the illustrations and accounts of the habits of animals would have been terrifically interesting. There would have been much less use for zoos: you just went out, with suitable precautions, and did dinosaur-watching wherever you were, and made punch-card records of their egg clutch sizes..."

This study is worth a read for anyone interested in ecological issues, including environmental management and history. It's a great read!

As good as new

Amazing!

This is a classic work (originally published in 1958) by the British scientist, Charles Elton. It is a must read for those who are interested in the field of bioinvasions, even if modern researchers do not agree with every point Elton made.Elton gives examples of species that have been transported from one part of the world to another, sometimes becoming established pests. He shows how biogeographic areas may start to blend in, if not be lost, if biological invasions occur continuously.Another issue Elton looks at is the use of pesticides and the resulting resistant strains of the pests the chemicals were meant to eliminate or control.In the end, Elton calls for conservation - a co-existance between humankind and nature, and ecological variety.

This is the classic text for invasion biology and a good read. A lot of what Eltion writes still applies today and he presents a lot of the basic issues that tend to be reidscovered by others.

This is a great book. Written in 1958 and prefiguring some massive issues in ecology and the "biodiversity crisis" of today. People might quibble about the archipelago of continents and the sea level vs continental drift/plate tectonics aspects but the main concern is the effect of connectedness in causing ecological dislocations and disruptions that tend to lead to a reduction of diversity. Also very powerful on the need to understand systems before tampering with them - made me wonder if following the 1950s there was a kind of race to find ways to "control" ecosystems (natural and simplified in agriculture), and for a long time this race was won by guys who could knock up a new chlorinated hydrocarbon over the weekend while the ecologists had to take decades to arrive at a good understanding. So v prescient on pesticide and herbicides, introductions, disease etc. To my shame I had not read this before and was only alerted to it by a reference in Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, read last week (another cause for regret this as I had snobbbishly avoided this thinking it was a bunny hugging and unscientific rant). Elton's style is fantastic - clear and witty, obviously an erudite and witty man. This makes the book highly readable - in fact so readable that one occasionally must pause to reflect on some of the massive ideas he is discussing.

Really interesting insights into invasive species. It is possible to use the history in this book to compare it to todays problems, and to see how these problems today have arised.A must read for any ecologist!

Back to the basics - enjoyable

The book is a classic and anyone interested in modern issues of invasive species needs to read this book to realize how HUGE the issue actually is for humanity. Charles Elton started the ball rolling on invasive species by making everyone realize how many human activities lead to the spread of invasives. The problem has only grown... with little being done successfully. Every ecologist, economist, and conservationist need this book on their shelves.

この本は全部で50の図版（写真を含む）を含んでいる．しかし残念ながら製版がたいへん不鮮明である．とくに写真などが悪い．とくに図版14～20はワレス(A. R. Wallace)の本からの図であるが，本版のきれいな絵が見る影もなくなっている．もしリプリント版であるならそのことを予め断っておくべきであろう．また，本の最後にprinted in Japanと書かれているが，その点もアマゾンの情報には記されていない．これは，書籍商品の販売として情報の提供が不適切なのではないだろうか．