A transporting exploration of the deep sea, and how our planet’s strangest, most ancient and astonishing creatures have urgent relevance to cutting-edge science today.

Hundred-year-old giant clams, coral kingdoms the size and shape of cities, and jellyfish that glow in the dark: ocean invertebrates are among the oldest and most diverse organisms on Earth, seeming to bend the rules of land-based biology. Although sometimes unseen in the deep, these incredible spineless creatures contain 600 million years of adaptation to problems of disease, energy consumption, nutrition, and defence.

Marine ecologist Dr Drew Harvell takes us diving from Hawaii to the Salish Sea, from the Caribbean to Indonesia, to uncover the incredible underwater ‘superpowers’ of spineless creatures: we meet corals many times stronger than steel or concrete, sponges who create potent chemical compounds to fight off disease, and sea stars who garden the coastlines, keeping all the other nearby species in perfect balance. As our planet changes fast, the biomedical, engineering and energy innovations of these wondrous creatures hold ever more important secrets to our own survival.

The Ocean’s Menagerie is a tale of biological marvels, a story of a woman’s passionate connection to an adventurous career in science and a call to arms to protect the world’s most ancient ecosystems.

Inducible defenses--those often dramatic phenotypic shifts in prey activated by biological agents ranging from predators to pathogens--are widespread in the natural world. Yet research on the inducible defenses used by vertebrates, invertebrates, and plants in terrestrial, marine, and freshwater habitats has largely developed along independent lines. Ralph Tollrian and Drew Harvell seek to change that here. By bringing together leading researchers from all fields to review common themes and explore emerging ideas, this book represents the most current and comprehensive survey of knowledge about the ecology and evolution of inducible defenses.

Contributors examine organisms as different as unicellular algae and higher vertebrates, and consider defenses ranging from immune systems to protective changes in morphology, behavior, chemistry, and life history. The authors of the review chapters, case studies, and theoretical studies pinpoint unifying factors favoring the evolution of inducible defenses. Throughout, the volume emphasizes a multidisciplinary approach, integrating applied and theoretical ecology, evolution, genetics, and chemistry. In addition, Harvell and Tollrian provide an introduction and a conclusion that review the current state of knowledge in the field and identify areas for future research.

The contributors, in addition to the editors, are May Berenbaum, Arthur Zangerl, Johannes Jaremo, Juha Tuomi, Patric Nilsson, Anurag Agrawal, Richard Karban, Marcel Dicke, Ellen Van Donk, Miquel Lurling, Winfried Lampert, Simon Frost, John Gilbert, Hans-Werner Kuhlmann, Jurgen Kusch, Klaus Heckmann, Luc De Meester, Piotr Dawidowicz, Erik van Gool, Carsten Loose, Stanley Dodson, Christer Bronmark, Lars Pettersson, Anders Nilsson, Bradley Anholt, Earl Werner, Curtis Lively, Frederick Adler, Daniel Grunbaum, and Wilfried Gabriel."

Winner of the Sustainability Science Award 2020, Ecological Society of America Winner of the PROSE Award (Biological Sciences category) 2020, Association of American PublishersThere is a growing crisis in our oceans: mysterious outbreaks of infectious disease are on the rise. Marine epidemics can cause mass die-offs of wildlife from the bottom to the top of food chains, impacting the health of ocean ecosystems as well as lives on land. Portending global environmental disaster, ocean outbreaks are fueled by warming seas, sewage dumping, unregulated aquaculture, and drifting plastic. Ocean Outbreak follows renowned scientist Drew Harvell and her colleagues into the field as they investigate how four iconic marine animals-corals, abalone, salmon, and starfish-have been devastated by disease. Based on over twenty years of research, this firsthand account of the sometimes gradual, sometimes exploding impact of disease on our ocean's biodiversity ends with solutions and a call to action. Only through policy changes and the implementation of innovative solutions from nature can we reduce major outbreaks, save some ocean ecosystems, and protect our fragile environment.