Humans are terrestrial animals, and our capacity to see and understand the importance and vulnerability of life in the sea has trailed our growing ability to harm it. While conservation biologists are working to address environmental problems humans have created on land, loss of marine biodiversity, including extinctions and habitat degradation, has received much less attention. At the same time, marine sciences such as oceanography and fisheries biology have largely ignored issues of conservation.
Marine Conservation Biology brings together for the first time in a single volume, leading experts from around the world to apply the lessons and thinking of conservation biology to marine issues. Contributors including James M. Acheson, Louis W. Botsford, James T. Carlton, Kristina Gjerde, Selina S. Heppell, Ransom A. Myers, Julia K. Parrish, Stephen R. Palumbi, and Daniel Pauly offer penetrating insights on the nature of marine biodiversity, what threatens it, and what humans can and must do to recover the biological integrity of the world's estuaries, coastal seas, and oceans.
Sections examine: distinctive aspects of marine populations and ecosystems; threats to marine biological diversity, singly and in combination; place-based management of marine ecosystems; the often-neglected human dimensions of marine conservation.
Marine Conservation Biology breaks new ground by creating the conceptual framework for the new field of marine conservation biology -- the science of protecting, recovering, and sustainably using the living sea. It synthesizes the latest knowledge and ideas from leading thinkers in disciplines ranging from larval biology to sociology, making it a must-read for research and teaching faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate and advanced undergraduate students (who share an interest in bringing conservation biology to marine issues). Likewise, its lucid scientific examinations illuminate key issues facing environmental managers, policymakers, advocates, and funders concerned with the health of our oceans.
Elliot A. Norse is a marine and forest conservation biologist. His Ph.D. and postdoctoral research in the 1970s examined the ecology of blue crabs (Callinectes spp.) in Jamaica, Curacao, Mexico, Panama, and Columbia. Since then, he has devoted his career to incorporating conservation biology into environmental decision making as a staff member or consultant for US federal agencies, international governmental organizations, scientific professional societies, conservation organizations, and foundations. His writings include more than 50 publications on environmental policy, conservation biology, marine ecology, forest ecology, and human-caused climatic change.In 1986, as Public Policy Director of the Ecological Society of America, Elliot Norse worked with The Wilderness Society to write
Conserving Biological Diversity in Our National Forests. He is also the author of
Ancient Forests of the Pacific Northwest (Island Press, 1989),
Global Marine Biological Diversity: A Strategy For Building Conservation Into Decision Making (Island Press, 1993), and
Marine Conservation Biology: The Science of Maintaining the Sea's Biodiversity (Island Press, 2005).
Larry B. Crowder is Stephen Toth Professor of Marine Biology at Duke University. Crowder focuses on predation and food web interactions, mechanisms underlying recruitment variation in fishes, and on population modeling in conservation biology.
He co-directed the South Atlantic Bight Recruitment Experiment and continues to conduct research on the life histories of estuarine-dependent fishes. He continues to conduct model and statistical analysis to assist in endangered species management for both aquatic (sea turtles) and terrestrial species (red-cockaded woodpeckers). Recently he has begun developing more extensive programs in marine conservation, including research on bycatch, nutrients and low oxygen, marine invasive species and integrated ecosystem management
Crowder currently serves on the Ocean Studies Board, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences and on the scientific steering committees for the Global Ocean Observing System, the Global Oceanic Ecosystem Dynamics Program. He is a member of the IUCN/SSC Marine Turtle Specialists Group and head of bycatch subgroup. He is also a member of the editorial board for Ecological Applications and serves as a science advisor for the Earth & Sky Radio Series.
Michael Soulé is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz. A founder and first president of the Society for Conservation Biology and The Wildlands Network, Dr. Soulé has written and edited nine books on biology, conservation biology, and the social and policy context of conservation and has published more than 170 papers in journals. Soulé is a fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among his many honors, Dr. Soulé is the sixth recipient of the Archie Carr Medal and in the first class of recipients of The Edward O. Wilson Biodiversity Technology Pioneer Award.
