Shore Fishes of Easter Island

Shore Fishes of Easter Island
Author: John E. Randall
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2011-08-31
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0824861000

Easter Island (Rapanui) is the most remote inhabited island in the Pacific Ocean and the easternmost in Oceania. Much has been written on the origin of its first inhabitants and the enormous stone statues they carved and erected, but little exists on the island’s biota. Knowing that very few species of fishes had been reported for Easter Island, John Randall went there in 1969, with the support of the National Geographic Society, to study the fish fauna. He was joined during revisits in 1988 and 1989 by the island’s medical doctor, Alfredo Cea. They published the Rapanui names of fishes in 1984. The total number of Easter Island shore fishes to a depth of 200 meters is only 139 species. However, an astounding 21.7 percent are known only from the island, second only to the Hawaiian Islands in the percentage of endemic fishes. Forty-four new species of fishes have been described, of which 25 are in scientific papers by Randall or by Randall and coauthors. Shore Fishes of Easter Island puts all of these fishes in one beautifully illustrated book with introductory chapters (Historical Review, Zoogeography, Marine Conservation, Materials and Methods).

The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants

The Ecology of Invasions by Animals and Plants
Author: Charles S. Elton
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2013-11-21
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1489972145

This book signaled a shift in the understanding of the global reorganization of biological species during the Anthropocene. The encouragement of acclimatization and naturalization of new species gave way to managing the ramifications of the changes that introductions bought to ecologies, landscapes and environments. The 19th century environments of the new world - land and sea - became testing grounds for the introduction of new assemblages of people and plants, economies and animals, cultures and coastlines. But some species became out-of-control threats to environments across the globe. These changes have enduring impacts, some adverse, some beneficial, that are dynamic, unpredictable and often oscillating.

The Survival of Easter Island

The Survival of Easter Island
Author: Jan J. Boersema
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2015-04-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1316298450

In this book, Jan J. Boersema reconstructs the ecological and cultural history of Easter Island and critiques the hitherto accepted theory of the collapse of its civilization. The collapse theory, advanced most recently by Jared Diamond and Clive Ponting, is based on the documented overexploitation of natural resources, particularly woodlands, on which Easter Island culture depended. Deforestation is said to have led to erosion, followed by hunger, conflict, and economic and cultural collapse. Drawing on scientific data and historical sources, including the shipping journals of the Dutch merchant who was the first European to visit the island in 1722, Boersema shows that deforestation did not in fact jeopardize food production and lead to starvation and violence. On the basis of historical and scientific evidence, Boersema demonstrates how Easter Island society responded to cultural and environmental change as it evolved and managed to survive.

Treatise on Zoology - Anatomy, Taxonomy, Biology. The Crustacea, Volume 5

Treatise on Zoology - Anatomy, Taxonomy, Biology. The Crustacea, Volume 5
Author: Carel von Vaupel Klein
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2015-03-20
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9004232516

This fifth volume of The Crustacea contains chapters on: ● Devoting a chapter to Pentastomida ● Class Eupentastomida ● Orders Bochusacea, Mictacea, and Spelaeogriphacea ● Order Amphipoda ● Order Tanaidacea For those working on Arthropoda, it will be obvious that the chapters on Pentastomida are newly conceived. The other chapters in this book constitute updated translations of contributions in the French edition of the Traité, volume 7(III)(A), while the order Bochusacea, not featuring in the French version as only more recently described, has been added in a combined treatment with the two closely similar orders. Overall, this constitutes the eighth tome published in this English series, viz., preceded by volumes 1 (2004), 2 (2006), 9A (2010), 9B (2012), 3 (2012), 4A (2013), and 4B (2014). From vol. 4A onward the chapters are no longer published in the serial sequence as originally envisaged, because the various contributions, both the updates and the entirely new chapters, become available in a more or less random order. Yet, when completing this series, all major issues as well as all taxa currently recognized will have been treated.