• 螫伤!水母的繁盛以及大海的未来
  • Stung! On Jellyfish Blooms and the Future of the Ocean
  • 作者:Lisa-ann Gershwin
  • 出版社代理人:University of Chicago Press(美国)
  • 出版时间:2014年10月
  • 页数:456页
  • 已售版权:
  • 版权联系人:tina@peonyliteraryagency.com
内容介绍
 
*   本书的前言由美国知名海洋生物学家、探险家以及作家Sylvia Earle所著
*   本书收入16张彩色图片
 
我们的海洋对许多生物来说是个越来越不适于生长的环境——有害的毒性越来越多、海水温度越来越高,再加上人类的海捞过度,导致许多海洋生物即将绝种。但是,有一个生物反而在这个病态的环境下繁盛:美丽、危险、神秘以及现在多量的水母。作者Lisa-Ann Gershwin是全球最领先的水母专家之一,她在这本书中叙述了水母群数繁盛如何代表了我们海洋目前是多么悲惨的状态。在同时,读者也可以了解水母的韧性到底有多惊人。
 
最近有一些纪录片讨论了在日本渔场出现大量的巨大水母群,以及夏天的时候会有水母团出现在地中海以及美国切萨皮克。这只是开始而已——水母的的确确地正在征服整个海洋。水母非常迷人,而他们是非常简单的生物,要生存需要的不多。基本上,目前的海洋对于水母比对于鱼类还要是一个有利的环境。这个环境很大部分是人类造出来的:破坏大自然、在岸边建设、污染、全球暖化。
 
这本书不只讨论这个现象,同时也掀开水母神秘的面纱,让读者了解这个充满魅力又可以夺命的生物。牠们的行为以及在新环境快速适应的能力会让读者惊喜以及佩服。作者带着读者进入水母的历史,回到原生时代——当时没有鱼类,没有哺乳动物,没有乌龟,而当时水母的工作是毁坏的中间人,从一个脆弱的生态系统到另一个脆弱的生态系统。作者相信水母的故事就是海洋的故事,完完全全在这本书中呈现。
 
关于作者:
Lisa-ann Gershwin是澳大利亚Marine Stinger Advisory Services的负责人。她曾发现过150种新的物种——包括至少16种非常危险的水母,以及一个新种的海豚。
 
书评:
Nature
“A comprehensive summary of the irresistible rise of an arguably unstoppable creature.”
 



Audubon
“Gershwin is a scientist who can write.  She is a scientist, a conservationist, a public conscience, and a prophet.  ‘Prophet’ is a mantle which nobody dons willingly because part of the definition of 'prophet' is that nobody listens to the warning until it is too late. It is probably not too late yet.  So read Stung!. Then start making noise.”
Callum Roberts, author of The Ocean of Life
“Vivid, lively, and enthralling! The world of jellyfish is brought alive as you never imagined it could be by Lisa-ann Gershwin in this engaging, gripping, and often funny book. Stung! is an enthusiastic guide to the extraordinary story of jellyfish, a group that dominated the world oceans of half a billion years ago, and in present form, may come to do so again if we don’t curb the rising tide of human damage to the sea.”
Sylvia Earle, from the Foreword
“Reading this book should inspire heightened respect for these typically translucent creatures, some notable for their sophisticated stinging apparatus, some for their rainbow-colored bands of iridescent cilia, some for their ability to flash, sparkle or glow with their own living light—all, in a sense, ‘living fossils,’ considering their ancient lineage. . . . By picking out jellyfish and telling their stories, Lisa-ann Gershwin masterfully shows how they and we are hitched together—and to everything else in the universe.”
 
Paul Dayton, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
“Read this book!  You know that the oceans are in trouble, but this is the most comprehensive and clear explanation of why.  Stung! is more than just a book about jellyfish; it is undoubtedly one of the best books detailing the stresses on our ocean ecosystems. It is a much needed and spectacular achievement.”
Choice
“This well-researched book is not just about jellyfish, but rather about the current and future state of the world’s oceans. Gershwin has done a superb job of summarizing all of the various indignities people have inflicted on the marine world, from pollution, overfishing, acidification, and invasive species, to the problem of eutrophication and dead zones. As she guides readers through the basics of jellyfish biology, she shows how the characteristics of these animals make them ideally suited to over stressed environments and gives examples of how they have already done just that.  . . . Highly recommended.”
Quartz
“’Jellyfish populations are exploding into superabundances and exploiting these changes in ways that we could never have imagined… and in some cases driving them,’ explains biologist Gershwin in her brilliant book Stung!, a fascinating read.”
Huffington Post
“The Australian jellyfish expert, Gershwin, tells the story of jellyfish and human plunder of the oceans in Stung!. Stung! evokes the danger of jellyfish blooms but, even more fundamentally, it is about the real stung effect of the collapsing oceans. Stung! is extremely important, well written and well documented.”
London Review of Books
"A serious monograph disguised as a monster movie."
 
目录:
Foreword by Sylvia Earle
Introduction

Part 1. Jellyfish Behaving Badly

1. At the Mercy of Jellyfish
2. Some Astonishing Ecological Impacts
3. Jellyfish Completely Out of Control

Part II. Jellyfish, Planetary Doom, and Other Trivia

4. Jellyfish: The Basics
5. Overview of Ecosystem Perturbations
6. Overfishing: A Powerful Agent of Ecosystem Change
7. Eutrophication Almost Always Leads to Jellyfish
8. Pollution Destabilizes Ecosystems
9. Biopollution: The Twelfth Plague
10. Climate Change Changes Everything

Part III. The Weeds Shall Inherit the Earth 

11. The Allee Effect, Trophic Cascades, and Shifting Baselines
12. The Jellyfish Double Whammy
13. High-Energy and Low-Energy Ecosystems

Part IV. The Oceans Are Dying to Tell Us Something

14. Ocean Acidification: The “New” Problem
15. The Rise of Slime

Acknowledgments
Appendix
Glossary of Terms
Some Practical Conversions
References
Index