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Reviewed by:
  • Invasive Plant Ecology by Shibu Jose, Harminder Pal Singh, Daizy R. Batis, and Ravinder Kumar Kohli (eds)
  • Erin K. Espeland (bio)
Invasive Plant Ecology Shibu Jose, Harminder Pal Singh, Daizy R. Batis, and Ravinder Kumar Kohli (eds). 2013. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. $69.00 ebook, $99.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9781439881262. 302 pages.

This book is a conference proceedings. Submissions are mostly from attendees at two International Union of Forestry Research Organization meetings, one in India in 2009 and the other in Seoul in 2010. Like most conference proceedings, the chapters are idiosyncratic, ranging from annotated lists to synthetic reviews on basic plant ecological processes viewed through the lens of invasion. While it is true that conference proceedings can be useful references for professionals and students, this book as a whole does not have enough generality to support its residence on most ecologists’ bookshelves. After reading the preface, I had hoped that this book might be an exciting new text for a course in advanced plant ecology using invasions as an example; similar to Inderjit (2005) but with less of a northern hemisphere focus. I was disappointed. The chapters on species/genotype coexistence, mycorrhizae, geospatial tools, and restoration are outstanding general reviews that would be appropriate references or text for a graduate-level course, but these comprise only a fraction of the eighteen book chapters. A few chapters provide generalizable case studies, but most of these do not provide enough background to be easily accessible by the non-specialist. Many chapters are either very geographically-specific or limited to a single experiment and are unlikely to be useful to most professionals and students. The chapters devoted to India and Africa may be very valuable to researchers in these regions that are underrepresented in the most recent books on invasive species (Mooney and Hobbs 2000, Carlton and Ruiz 2003, Inderjit 2005).

Like many conference proceedings organized around a theme, the introductory paragraphs are extremely repetitive across the chapters. Also, at least seven different terms were used for invasive plant species throughout the book: IP (invasive plant), IAS (invasive alien species), exotic, invasive, IA (invasive alien), IAP (invasive alien plant), and weed. These problems could have been prevented with better copyediting. Proofreading was also lax—a citation I was very interested in reading had the senior author’s name misspelled in both the text and the literature cited section, making the publication very difficult to find. This, in addition to mistakes such as “fuzz” instead of “buzz”, made the reading either annoying or humorous.

Erin K. Espeland

Erin K. Espeland (erin.espeland@ars.usda.gov) is a Restoration Ecologist at the USDA-ARS Northern Plains Agricultural Laboratory, Pest Management Research Unit, Sidney, MT. Dr. Espeland works on invasive species removal and restoration with a special emphasis on how plant-plant interactions, plant-soil interactions, and evolutionary processes influence successful outcomes.

References

Carlton, J. and G.M. Ruiz (eds). 2003. Invasive Species Vectors and Management. Washington D.C.: Island Press.
Inderjit, S. (ed). 2005. Invasive Plants: Ecological and Agricultural Aspects. Boston MA: Birkhäuser Verlag. [End Page 212]
Mooney, H.A. and R.J. Hobbs (eds). 2000. Invasive Species in a Changing World. Washington D.C.: Island Press.
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