It so happened that, the morning before I began reading this timely and enlightening book about the impact of invasive species, there was an item on Radio 4’s Today programme about the discovery in a reservoir in Berkshire of a colony of quagga mussels, a small, resourceful and fecund bivalve originating in Ukraine. There was an interview with the ecologist leading the research team, introduced with a typical specimen of journalistic hype in which the presenter referred to the quagga as a ‘nasty piece of work’ and alleged that it formed part of what the researchers dubbed ‘invasional meltdown’.

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