Showing titles in Ecology

Approximately 200,000 years ago, as modern humans began to radiate out from their evolutionary birthplace in Africa, Neanderthals were already thriving in Europe - descendants of a much earlier migration of the African genus Homo. But when modern humans eventually made their way to Europe 45,000 years ago, Neanderthals suddenly vanished.

A profound, powerful and moving collection of 100 letters from around the world responding to the climate crisis, introduced by Emma Thompson and lovingly illustrated by CILIP award winner Jackie Morris. ‘All power to this amazing project.’ JOANNE HARRIS ‘Makes sense of the climate crisis...

Read by the author, Tom Lathan. In Lost Wonders author and journalist Tom Lathan tells the powerful stories of ten species that have lived, died out and been declared extinct since the turn of the twenty-first century. Many scientists believe that we are currently living through the Earth’s...

A fascinating, entertaining dive into the long-standing relationship between humans and insects, revealing the surprising ways we depend on these tiny, six-legged creatures. Insects might make us shudder in disgust, but they are also responsible for many of the things we take for granted in our...

What makes the modern world work? The answer to this deceptively simple question lies in four "grand transitions" of civilization - in populations, agriculture, energy, and economics - that have transformed the way we live. 

It is rare for life to change Earth, yet three organisms have profoundly transformed our planet over the long course of its history. Elemental reveals how microbes, plants, and people used the fundamental building blocks of life to alter the climate, and with it, the trajectory of life on Earth in the past, present, and future. Taking listeners from the deep geologic past to our current era of human dominance, Stephen Porder focuses on five of life’s essential elements—hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus.

In For the Love of Rivers, stream ecologist Kurt Fausch draws readers across the reflective surface of streams to view what is beneath, ponder how they work, and consider what is essential about streams and rivers for us as humans. In this beautiful memoir, he uses his many years of experience as a field biologist to explain the underlying science connecting these aquatic ecosystems and their fishes to streamside forests and the organisms found there —including humans.

One bright day in December 2001, sixty-two-year-old Germaine Greer found herself confronted by an irresistible challenge in the shape of sixty hectares of dairy farm, one of many in southeast Queensland, Australia, which, after a century of logging, clearing, and downright devastation, had been abandoned to their fate. She didn’t think for a minute that by restoring the land she was saving the world. She was in search of heart’s ease.

In a bid to create the perfect sustainable food production system, aquaponics was born. This system has been adopted worldwide and used extensively. However, many people tend to take up this food production technique without having basic knowledge of what it entails. As a result, their systems flop and fail to perform to their expectations. This has prompted educational campaigns geared toward familiarizing the community with the practice.

Most plants can’t survive the demands of “wet feet.” Usually, too much water causes them to wilt and virtually “meltdown,” as they become bloated and soggy. But there are a few hardy plants that know exactly how to deal with this problem—in fact wetland grasses, sedges, rushes, mosses, ferns, horsetails were the first plants to evolve on Earth and are, indeed, the ancestors of the garden trees, bushes, and flowers that we grow today.

The first book to tackle this subject in detail, based on more than 50 interviews from seven countries, Living with Lynx will be of relevance to anyone with an interest in the future of nature, farming and the countryside. Personal, detailed, unflinching and engaging, it adds a great deal to this rapidly evolving debate.

Best New Books on Space 2024 – Forbes ‘Rarely is a non-fiction book about science this engaging’ – Forbes Why darkness is so important – to plants, to animals, and to ourselves – and why we must protect it all costs. Darkness is the first thing we know in our human existence. Safe...

Mit Resonanz hat Hartmut Rosa ein Konzept vorgeschlagen, um der hegemonialen und verdinglichenden Beschleunigung des Renten- und Spekulationskapitalismus entgegenzuwirken. Ihm zufolge wird die tiefgreifende Umgestaltung unserer Gesellschaften nur dann gelingen, wenn wir uns darauf einlassen, ein neues Verhältnis zur Welt einzugehen, das von einer »responsiven« Beziehung zu ihr geprägt ist.

Our day-to-day experiences over the past decade have taught us that there must be limits to our tremendous appetite for energy, natural resources, and consumer goods. Even utility and oil companies now promote conservation in the face of demands for dwindling energy reserves. And for years some biologists have warned us of the direct correlation between scarcity and population growth.

Humankind has never before faced challenges of the scale and complexity of today. We need to expand our ethical toolkit. The mental tools most of us rely on to ‘do the right thing’ just don’t work when it comes to reasoning about such huge collective problems. From the small stuff like single-use plastics to major decisions like whether to have children, Rieder defines exactly how we can change our thinking and lead a decent, meaningful life in a scary, complicated world.

The Galapagos Islands have captured hearts and captivated imaginations for centuries. Such is their ecological importance that in 1978 the archipelago was declared the first ever World Heritage Site, a testament to our collective desire to preserve the magic and diversity that inspired Darwin...

Emmy Award - winning filmmaker, writer, and naturalist Joe Hutto has done it again. Touching the Wild is the enchanting story about one man who has lived with a herd of mule deer in the Wind River mountains of Wyoming for almost seven years. Why, you may ask, would a person choose to do such a thing? His response: how could you not? For Joe Hutto, close proximity to wild things is irresistible. In Illumination in the Flatwoods he unveiled the secret lives of the wild turkey to great critical acclaim.

Paul Falkowski looks "under the hood" of microbes to find the engines of life, the actual working parts that do the biochemical heavy lifting for every living organism on Earth. With insight and humor, he explains how these miniature engines are built - and how they have been appropriated by and assembled like Lego sets within every creature that walks, swims, or flies. Falkowski shows how evolution works to maintain this core machinery of life, and how we and other animals are veritable conglomerations of microbes.

Without our realising it, a single, slippery concept has become a secular deity throughout the modern industrial world. We make terrible sacrifices in its name: of our money, our health and our planet. That deity is nature itself. From supermarket shoppers to evolutionary biologists, from atheists to pastors, from Alex Jones to Gwyneth Paltrow, we are all prone to the intuitive faith that life should be lived 'naturally'. 

Are you worried about the effects of climate change on our environment? Want to help but don't know where to start? Environmental activist Natalie Fee's new handbook to green living will help you to make small lifestyle changes that will make a big difference to our planet.