Book Description Review Quotes Contents
Book Description

Invasive alien species are among today's most daunting environmental threats, costing billions of dollars in economic damages and wreaking havoc on ecosystems around the world. In 1997, a consortium of scientific organizations including SCOPE, IUCN, and CABI developed the Global Invasive Species Programme (GISP) with the explicit objective of providing new tools for understanding and coping with invasive alien species.

Invasive Alien Species is the final report of GISP's first phase of operation, 1997-2000, in which authorities from more than thirty countries worked to examine invasions as a worldwide environmental hazard. The book brings together the world's leading scientists and researchers involved with invasive alien species to offer a comprehensive summary and synthesis of the current state of knowledge on the subject.

Invasive alien species represent a critical threat to natural ecosystems and native biodiversity, as well as to human economic vitality and health. The knowledge gained to date in understanding and combating invasive alien species can form a useful basis on which to build strategies for controlling or minimizing the effects in the future. Invasive Alien Species is an essential reference for the international community of investigators concerned with biological invasions.



Review Quotes

"...provides a new foundation for everyone interested in the biological, socioeconomic, policy, or management implications of biological invasions."
Choice

"Well referenced. A truly comprehensive state-of-the-issue kind of text."
Northeastern Naturalist

"An outstanding summary of the results of Phase I of the Global Invasive Species Program, this volume presents up-to-date syntheses of important aspects of how to manage this worldwide problem. In ample, well-written chapters, it provides sound advice in areas that range from prediction of invasiveness and practical management to economics and the law. It will reward careful study by all those concerned with these problems!"
Peter H. Raven, Director of Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis

"Another benchmark volume from SCOPE. A comprehensive synthesis of the greatest challenges to biodiversity in the 21st century, as the negative synergies of climate change, land transformation, and invasions of ecosystems by aggressive alien species accelerate in the absence of adequate response strategies. This book, elegantly researched and presented in the Island Press tradition, crystallizes the results of over a century of good science and hard lessons that help us understand and combat the negative impacts of invasive alien species."
Brian Huntley, Chief Executive, South African National Biodiversity Institute

"No better entrée exists for the diverse issues surrounding invasive alien species. This volume charts a coherent way forward from increased understanding at the scientific level to successful reduction of the unintended harm that results from moving species around the globe. Up-to-date coverage is provided of the biological issues, risk characterization, legal and policy instruments, on-the-ground management, the various ways in which humans are both responsible for and suffer from invasive alien species, and other topics essential to an effective societal response. Finally we have a rigorous volume that unites descriptions of the problems with suggested solutions."
David M. Lodge, Professor of biological sciences, University of Notre Dame

Contents

The Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) - SCOPE Series
Table of Figures
List of Tables
Preface
Acknowledgments
 
Chapter 1. Invasive Alien Species: The Nature of The Problem
Chapter 2. The Economics of Biological Invasions
Chapter 3. Vector Science and Integrated Vector Management in Bioinvasion Ecology: Conceptual Frameworks
Chapter 4. The ISSG Global Invasive Species Database and Other Aspects of an Early Warning System
Chapter 5. Characterizing Ecological Risks of Introductions And Invasions
Chapter 6. Ecology of Invasive Plants: State of the Art
Chapter 7. Facilitation and Synergistic Interactions between Introduced Aquatic Species
Chapter 8. Assessing Biotic Invasions in Time and Space: The Second Imperative
Chapter 9. Best Practices for the Prevention and Management of Invasive Alien Species
Chapter 10. Legal and Institutional Frameworks for Invasive Alien Species
Chapter 11. Human Dimensions of Invasive Alien Species
Chapter 12. Invasive Species in a Changing World: The Interactions between Global Change and Invasives
Chapter 13. A Global Strategy on Invasive Alien Species: Synthesis and Ten Strategic Elements
 
List of Contributors
SCOPE Series List
SCOPE Executive Committee 2005–2008
Index