The voyage of the grebe: Island observations in the desert west, Baja California, and coastal California

Arid islands are important places to begin understanding introduced species. Island plants and animals are highly specialized, isolated organisms that are often small in number and highly susceptible to the negative effects of introduced species. By virtue of their limited fresh water and food resources, arid islands top the list of the world's vulnerable places. Human activities, particularly the introduction and spread of nonnative plants and animals, threaten and island communities. Although writers like John Steinbeck, Joseph Wood Krutch, and Ann Zwinger have found arid islands worthy of literary attention, there is not a large body of literature on the topic. My dissertation can thus make a valuable contribution.; This book about and islands is written for a general audience. Each of four core chapters employs techniques of storytelling and metaphor to communicate scientific concepts from the young field of invasion ecology and its ongoing developments and tensions. The reader accompanies the narrator to the reverse islands of Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge (southern Nevada), inland Anaho Island (Pyramid Lake, Nevada), the continental Midriff Islands in the Sea of Cortes (northwestern Mexico), and the continental Northern Channel Islands (southern California). Although the focus of the dissertation is on four arid island communities in the western United States and Mexico, the scientific principles and issues of human occupancy apply to arid islands worldwide.; As an environmental writer with exposure to natural resource management, my goal is to excite nonscientists to learn about arid islands and introduced species. I engage my audience by portraying the lives and motivations of the scientists whose minds are stimulated by arid islands. In their own words, biologists share the lives they have built on the preservation of non-charismatic animals and plants that have escaped the attention of many writers and conservationists. To inspire a sense of ownership and awareness, I bring the discussion of introduced species full circle to demonstrate the ways that each of us, as members of a growing human community of workers, vacationers, international travelers, and even home gardeners, participate in the spread of exotic species.