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Overview"Two decades ago, a Stuttgart zoo imported a lush, bright green seaweed for its aquarium. Caulerpa taxifolia was captively bred by the zoo and exposed, for years, to chemicals and ultraviolet light. Eventually a sample of it found its way to the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco, then headed by Jacques Cousteau. Fifteen years ago, while cleaning its tanks, that museum dumped the pretty green plant into the Mediterranean. This supposedly benign little plant—that no one thought could survive the waters of the Mediterranean—has now become a pernicious force. Caulerpa taxifolia now covers 10,000 acres of the coasts of France, Spain, Italy, and Croatia, and has devastated the Mediterranean ecosystem. And it continues to grow, unstoppable and toxic. When Alexandre Meinesz, a professor of biology at the University of Nice, discovered a square-yard patch of it in 1984, he warned biologists and oceanographers of the potential species invasion. His calls went unheeded. At that point, one person could have pulled the small patch out and ended the problem. Now, however, the plant has defeated the French Navy, thwarted scientific efforts to halt its rampage, and continues its destructive journey into the Adriatic Sea. Killer Algae is the biological and political horror story of this invasion. For despite Meinesz's pleas to scientists and the French government, no agency was willing to take responsibility for the seaweed, and while the buck was passed, the killer algae grew. And through it all, the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco sought to exculpate itself. In short, Killer Algae—part detective story and part bureaucratic object lesson—is a classic case of a devastating ecological invasion and how not to deal with it. ""[U]tterly fascinating, not only because of the ecological battles [Meinesz] describes but also because of the wondrous natural phenomena involved.""—Richard Bernstein, New York Times ""Akin to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, Killer Algae shows the courage of a voice in the wilderness.""—Choice ""A textbook case of how not to manage an environmental disaster.""—Kirkus Reviews ""Meinesz's story is a frightening one, reading more like a science fiction thriller than a scientific account.""—Publishers Weekly" Full Product DetailsAuthor: Alexandre Meinesz , Daniel Simberloff , Daniel SimberloffPublisher: The University of Chicago Press Imprint: University of Chicago Press Dimensions: Width: 1.60cm , Height: 0.30cm , Length: 2.10cm Weight: 0.624kg ISBN: 9780226519227ISBN 10: 0226519228 Pages: 360 Publication Date: 15 November 1999 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , General/trade , Undergraduate , Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Out of Stock Indefinitely Availability: Out of stock  Table of ContentsForeword by David Quammen Preface Acknowledgments Chapter One: From the Discovery of the Alga in Monaco to Its Arrival in France Chapter Two: The Alga Grows ... and the Polemic Begins Chapter Three: Caulerpa Taxifolia, Superstar Chapter Four: The Stakeholders Squabble ... and the Alga Spreads Chapter Five: Research Progresses ... and the Polemic Persists Chapter Six: Chiaroscuro: 1997-1998 Chapter Seven: The Three Lessons of Caulerpa Appendix One: The Biology of Caulerpa taxifolia as Known in 1991 Appendix Two: Chronology of a Heralded Invasion Appendix Three: Table of Measures Appendix Four: Acronyms of Organizations Appendix Five: Diagram of the French Government Notes Index ??ReviewsOne man's straggle to rid the Mediterranean of invading algae that have now spread from France to the coasts of Spain, Italy, and even Croatia. Meinesz (Biology/University of Nice), an algae specialist and diver, sounded the first alarm in the early 1980s, when a patch of Caulerpa taxifolia was found in waters beneath Monaco's Oceanographic Museum. The algae, noted for their graceful fronds, had been used to adorn the museum's aquaria and were flushed into the sea in ordinary maintenance. No one suspected that a tropical species could survive Mediterranean winter temperatures. But it did, and this grim chronology provides an exhausting but gripping account of what happened next. When Meinesz and his colleagues alerted museum officials, government agencies, and fellow scientists of the danger, museum officials refused to acknowledge culpability and accused Meinesz and Co. of being alarmists bent on obtaining more research funding. The algae are not in fact lethal to humans, but their prodigious ability to spread and choke off other flora and fauna threatens habitats and biodiversity. Meinesz sometimes overstates his case, especially in bitter concluding remarks inveighing against the media (which fanned the flames of fear or toadied to officials) and deploring the decline of research in the natural sciences in favor of reductionist molecular biology. Yet the press was useful in getting the word out, and without molecular genetics the nature of the mutant algae would not be known. Cleansing the Mediterranean of Caulerpa appears to be a lost cause, but with E.O. Wilson and other biologists speaking out on biodiversity and near-daily headlines about global threats to habitat or lethal diseases carried by invading organisms, we can hope that the lessons of ecology are not lost on the public. A textbook case of how not to manage an environmental disaster. (Kirkus Reviews) Author InformationAlexandre Meinesz is professor at the University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis and the author of Killer Algae, also published by the University of Chicago Press. Daniel Simberloff is the Nancy Hunger Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Tennessee and the translator of Killer Algae as well as The Art of Being a Parasite by Claude Combes, also published by the University of Chicago Press. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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