Skip to content
Home/ Gulf Stream Chronicles: A Naturalist Explores Life in an Ocean River
Gulf Stream Chronicles: A Naturalist Explores Life in an Ocean River

Gulf Stream Chronicles: A Naturalist Explores Life in an Ocean River

No customer reviews yet ISBN 9781469668765 The University of North Carolina Press

Off the shore of Hatteras Island, where the inner edge of the Gulf Stream flows northward over the outer continental shelf, the marine life is unlike that of any other area in the Atlantic. Here the powerful ocean river helps foster an extraordinarily rich diversity of life, including Sargassum mats concealing strange creatures and exotic sea beans, whales and sea turtles, sunfish and flying fish, and shearwaters and Bermuda petrels. During his long career as a research scientist, David S. Lee made more than 300 visits to this area off the North Carolina coast, documenting its extraordinary biodiversity. In this collection of twenty linked essays, Lee draws on his personal observations and knowledge of the North Atlantic marine environment to introduce us to the natural wonders of an offshore treasure.

Lee guides readers on adventures miles offshore and leagues under the sea, blending personal anecdotes with richly detailed natural history, local culture, and seafaring lore. These journeys provide entertaining and informative connections between the land and the diverse organisms that live in the Gulf Stream off the coast of North Carolina. Lee also reminds us that ocean environments are fragile and vulnerable to threats such as pollution, offshore energy development, and climate change, challenging those of us on land to consider carefully the costs of ignoring sea life that thrives just beyond our view.

About the author

Product details

BrandThe University of North Carolina Press
Pub dateNov 2, 2021
ISBN-101469668769
ISBN-139781469668765
Paperback302.0 pages
LanguageEnglish
Dimensions9.25 × 0.68 × 6.12 in
Weight1 lb
Last updated 2026-09-22 01:23
$34.09
In stock — ships in 24 hours with free tracking
Delivery by Friday, October 9, 2026
Qty
Sign in to Add to Saved list
Free delivery on orders over $35.
15-day returns. Any reason.
Secure checkout. We never store card details.

Readers who bought this also bought

More from Ecosystems & Habitats - Oceans & Seas
See all
Aquatic Functional Biodiversity: An Ecological and Evolutionary Perspective
<p><i>Aquatic Functional Biodiversity: An Ecological and Evolutionary Perspective</i> provides a general conceptual framework by some of the most prominent investigators in the field for how to link eco-evolutionary approaches with functional diversity to understand and conserve the provisioning of ecosystem services in aquatic systems. Rather than producing another methodological book, the editors and authors primarily concentrate on defining common grounds, connecting conceptual frameworks and providing examples by a more detailed discussion of a few empirical studies and projects, which illustrate key ideas and an outline of potential future directions and challenges that are expected in this interdisciplinary research field. </p> <p>Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in using network approaches to disentangle the relationship between biodiversity, community structure and functioning. Novel methods for model construction are being developed constantly, and modern methods allow for the inclusion of almost any type of explanatory variable that can be correlated either with biodiversity or ecosystem functioning. As a result these models have been widely used in ecology, conservation and eco-evolutionary biology. Nevertheless, there remains a considerable gap on how well these approaches are feasible to understand the mechanisms on how biodiversity constrains the provisioning of ecosystem services. </p>
$78.80