Life Ecology

How do trees live? Do they feel pain or have awareness of their surroundings? Research is now suggesting trees are capable of much more than we have ever known. In The Hidden Life of Trees, forester Peter Wohlleben puts groundbreaking scientific discoveries into a language everyone can relate to.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the book’s first publication, David Attenborough has revisited Life on Earth, completely updating and adding to the original text, taking account of modern scientific discoveries from around the globe....

Birds. Over 9,000 species, the most widespread of all animals: on icebergs, in the Sahara or under the sea, at home in our gardens or flying for over a year at a time. Earthbound, we can only look and listen, enjoying their lightness, freedom and richness of plumage and song. David Attenborough has been watching and learning all his life. His classic book, now fully updated with the latest discoveries in ornithology, is a brilliant introduction to bird behaviours around the world: what they do and why they do it.

Get up close and personal with an amazing creature that has invaded our lexicon as well as our restaurants. It breathes with tubes, it has no head or brain, it feeds through a filter, and it is the source of dozens of familiar proverbs ("happy as a clam!"). Clams, it turns out, have been worshipped (by the Moche people of ancient Peru), used as money (by the Algonquin Indians), and consumed by people for thousands of years.

Bekoff is recognized as a preeminent voice in the media for animal sentience and dog behavior, with high-profile appearances in Time, Life, the New York Times, New Scientist, and BBC Wildlife and on Good Morning America, 60 Minutes, and 20/20, among others.

Timothy Morton argues that ecological awareness in the present Anthropocene era takes the form of a strange loop or Möbius strip, twisted to have only one side. Deckard travels this oedipal path in Blade Runner when he learns that he might be the enemy he has been ordered to pursue. Ecological awareness takes this shape because ecological phenomena have a loop form that is also fundamental to the structure of how things are.

Nowhere on our planet is devoid of life. Plants and animals thrive or survive within every extreme of climate and habitat that it offers. Single species, and often whole communities, adapt to make the most of ice cap and tundra, forest and plain, desert, ocean and volcano. These adaptations can be truly extraordinary. In Living Planet, David Attenborough’s searching eye, unfailing curiosity and infectious enthusiasm explain and illuminate the intricate lives of the these colonies.

A Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist Winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Award A landmark work of science, history and reporting on the past, present and imperiled future of the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes—Erie, Huron, Michigan, Ontario and Superior—hold 20 percent of the world’s supply of...

Canadian botanist, biochemist and visionary Diana Beresford-Kroeger's startling insights into the hidden life of trees have already sparked a quiet revolution in how we understand our relationship to forests. Now, in a captivating account of how her life led her to these illuminating and crucial...

Explore ecology in this accessible introduction to how the natural world works and how we have started to understand the environment, ecosystems, and climate change. Using a bold approach, The Ecology Book explores and explains over 85 of the key ideas, movements, and acts that have defined...

Noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau spent two years, two months, and two days chronicling his near-isolation in the small cabin he built in the woods near Walden Pond on land owned by his mentor, the father of Transcendentalism, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Immersing himself in nature and solitude, Thoreau sought to develop a greater understanding of society amidst a life of self-reliance and simplicity. Originally published in 1854, Walden remains one of the most celebrated works in American literature.

Join Cecilia Blomdahl in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, the world's northernmost town. Located in the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole, Svalbard is a unique archipelago that boasts stunning wintry landscapes, endangered arctic animals, and awe-inspiring natural phenomena. Since 2016, Cecilia has called...

In Of Orcas and Men, a marvelously compelling mix of cultural history, environmental reporting, and scientific research, David Neiwert explores an extraordinary species and its occasionally fraught relationship with human beings. Beginning with their role in myth and contemporary culture, Neiwert shows how killer whales came to capture our imaginations and brings to life the often-catastrophic environmental consequences of that appeal.

Australopithecines, dinosaurs, trilobites - such fossils conjure up images of lost worlds filled with vanished organisms. But in the full history of life, ancient animals, even the trilobites, form only the half-billion-year tip of a nearly four-billion-year iceberg. Andrew Knoll explores the deep history of life from its origins on a young planet to the incredible Cambrian explosion, presenting a compelling new explanation for the emergence of biological novelty.

Edmund Hillary - A Biography is the story of the New Zealand beekeeper who climbed Mount Everest. A man, who against expedition orders, drove his tractor to the South Pole; a man honored around the world for his pioneering climbs, yet who collapsed on more than one occasion on a mountain, and a man who gave so much to Nepal yet lost his family to its mountains.

In this classic work that continues to inspire its many fans, James Lovelock deftly explains his idea that life on Earth functions as a single organism. Written for the non-scientist, Gaia is a journey through time and space in search of evidence with which to support a new and radically different model of our planet. In contrast to conventional belief that living matter is passive in the face of threats to its existence, the book explores the hypothesis that the Earth's living matter - air, ocean, and land surfaces - forms a complex system that has the capacity to keep the Earth a fit place for life.

Joe Roman reveals how ecosystems are sculpted and sustained by animals eating, pooping, and dying—and how these fundamental functions could help save us from climate catastrophe. If forests are the lungs of the planet, then animals migrating across oceans, streams, and mountains—eating...

A riveting exploration of how microbes are transforming the way we see nature and ourselves - and could revolutionize agriculture and medicine. Prepare to set aside what you think you know about yourself and microbes. Good health - for people and for plants - depends on Earth's smallest creatures. The Hidden Half of Nature tells the story of our tangled relationship with microbes and their potential to revolutionize agriculture and medicine, from garden to gut.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A vivid account of a major shift in how we understand Earth, from an exceptionally talented new voice. Earth is not simply an inanimate planet on which life evolved, but rather a planet that came to life. “Glorious . . . full of achingly beautiful passages...

In Ecological Thinking, the second installment in the "Loving a Sacred Life" series, the focus is on how we think about the world and what does that thinking. Mother Earth as a living being will be explored, as well as the idea of a soul that has an infinite relationship to the planet, beyond our limited human body. Some traditions acknowledge this and we'll look at those traditions that relate to the planet differently than the typical world view. Astrology as a tool for monitoring this relationship over the ages will also be explored.