Hawaiian Natural History, Ecology, and Evolution

Not since Willam A. Bryan's 1915 landmark compendium, Hawaiian Natural History, has there been a single-volume work that offers such extensive coverage of this complex but fascinating subject. Illustrated with more than two dozen color plates and a hundred photographs and line drawings, Hawaiian Natural History, Ecology, and Evolution updates both the earlier publication and subsequent works by compiling and synthesizing in a uniform and accessible fashion the widely scattered information now available.

Readers can trace the natural history of the Hawaiian Archipelago through the book's twenty-eight chapters or focus on specific topics such as island formation by plate tectonics, plant and animal evolution, flightless birds and their fossil sites, Polynesian migrational history and ecology, the effects of humans and exotic animals on the environment, current conservation efforts, and the contributions of the many naturalists who visited the islands over the centuries and the stories behind their discoveries. An extensive annotated bibliography and a list of audio-visual materials will help readers locate additional sources of information.

• Alan C. Ziegler, Author

  Alan C. Ziegler lived in Hawaii for more than three decades, spending the first half of this period as head of Bishop Museum's Vertebrate Zoology Division and the second as an independent zoological consultant. He taught in the anthropology, general science, and zoology departments of the University of Hawaii and at community colleges in the state.

• The most encyclopedic, authoritative account of Hawaiian natural history to date
  —Environment Hawaii, February 2003
• Indispensable
  —Maui News, 16 February 2003
• A good overall, integrative, and up-to-date overview of the natural world of the Hawaiian islands.... Oh, how I wish I had had this book when I first set foot in Hawaii!
  —Plant Systematics and Evolution 250 (2005)