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STRAYER, D. L., 2012. The Hudson Primer: The Ecology of an Iconic River. University of California Press, x+207 p. 21 × 13.5 cm, softcover, US$ 24.95, ISBN: 978-0520269613.
David Strayer's new book, The Hudson Primer: The Ecology of an Iconic River, is an informative and eminently readable book. He distills decades of research on the Hudson, one of the best studied rivers anywhere, into a book that is accessible to a general audience. He does this without giving in to the temptation of oversimplification. The book introduces crucial ideas about how biotic and abiotic factors shape ecosystems and, importantly, how they operate and interact over a large range of temporal and spatial scales. The reader does not have to live near the Hudson for the book to be both relevant and compelling. For ecologists who are not specialists in freshwater and ecosystem studies, the book is a broad summary of some key studies that have been conducted in this ecosystem.
David Strayer is a freshwater ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystems Studies in Millbrook, New York. He has spent over 3 decades of his academic career in upstate New York, and much of his own research, which includes the study of pearly mussels, water celery, and zebra mussels, takes place on the Hudson. The scientific information in The...