Science Ecology

The author of Finding the Mother Tree and scientist who pioneered the concept of sophisticated communication between trees, Suzanne Simard now offers a powerful vision for saving our forests based on nature’s deep-rooted cycles of renewal. "A masterclass on the inner workings of forests...

An entertaining and enlightening exploration of why waste matters, this cultural history explores an often ignored subject matter and makes a compelling argument for a deeper understanding of human and animal waste. Approaching the subject from a variety of perspectives - evolutionary, ecological, and cultural - this examination shows how integral excrement is to biodiversity, agriculture, public health, food production and distribution, and global ecosystems.

How rethinking our relationships with other species can help us reimagine the future of humankind In the woodlands of sub-Saharan Africa, sometime deep in our species’ past, something strange happened: a bird called out, not to warn others of human presence, but to call attention to herself...

Elixir spans five thousand years, from the beginnings of civilization to the parched American Sun Belt of today. It is a story of human endeavor: our present-day interaction with this most essential resource has deep roots in the remote past, and every human culture has been shaped by its relationship to water.

Venomologist Bryan Grieg Fry has one of the most dangerous jobs on Earth: He works with its deadliest creatures. He’s been bitten by 26 venomous snakes, been stung by three stingrays, and survived a near-fatal scorpion sting while deep in the Amazon jungle. He’s received more than 400 stitches and broken 23 bones. But when you research only the venom you yourself have collected, the adventures never stop. Bryan recounts his lifelong passion for studying the world’s most venomous creatures in this outlandish, captivating memoir, where he and danger are never far apart.

Our insatiable demand for animals - for jewelry, pets, medicine, meat, trophies, and fur - is driving a worldwide poaching epidemic, threatening the continued existence of countless species. Rachel Nuwer, an award-winning science journalist with a background in ecology, takes listeners on a narrative journey to the front lines of the trade: to killing fields in Africa, traditional medicine black markets in China, and wild meat restaurants in Vietnam. Through exhaustive first-hand reporting that took her to 10 countries, Nuwer explores the forces currently driving the demand.

Some animals live in water. Some animals live on land. The land that animals live on can be very different. What makes a place the right home for an animal? Let’s investigate habitats!

What can nature teach us about living together? Investigating eight symbiotic relationships trying to survive the climate and biodiversity crises, Sophie Pavelle explains why it has never been more vital for us to understand symbiosis. Symbiotic relationships regulate ecosystems, strengthen resilience and bind pivotal connections. Species living together in symbiosis is no accident – these dynamics evolved.

Transporting listeners into the field with scientists tackling these profound challenges, Emma Marris tells the affecting and inspiring stories of animals around the globe - from Peruvian monkeys to Australian bilbies, rare Hawai'ian birds to majestic Oregon wolves. And she offers a companionable tour of the philosophical ideas that may steer our search for sustainability and justice in the non-human world. Revealing just how intertwined animal life and human life really are, Wild Souls will change the way we think about nature-and our place within it.

As nature's largest and longest-lived creations, trees play an extraordinarily important role in our cities; they are living landmarks that define space, cool the air, soothe our psyches, and connect us to nature and our past. Jill Jonnes's Urban Forests tells the captivating stories of the founding mothers and fathers of urban forestry, in addition to those arboreal advocates presently using the latest technologies to illuminate the value of trees to public health and to our urban infrastructure.

Humans depend on soil for 95 percent of global food production, yet let it erode at unsustainable rates. In the United States, China, and India, vast tracts of farmland will be barren of topsoil within this century. The combination of intensifying erosion caused by climate change and the increasing food needs of a growing world population is creating a desperate need for solutions to this crisis.

An Expert's View of the Big Cat's Fight to Find Its Wild During a time when most wild animals are experiencing decline in the face of development and climate change, the intrepid mountain lion -- also known as a puma, a cougar, and by many other names - has experienced reinvigoration as well as...

Grandpa says circles are all around us. He points to the rainbow that rises high in the sky after a thundercloud has come. Can you see? That's only half of the circle. That rest of it is down below, in the earth. He and his granddaughter meditate on gardens and seeds, on circles seen and unseen, inside and outside us, on where our bodies come from and where they return to. They share and create family traditions in this stunning video adaptation of the Pura Belpre award-winning exploration of the cycles of life and nature.

Formerly titled Slaughter the Animals, Poison the Earth. All new foreword by New York Times Bestselling author Steve Jackson. It is the extermination of the coyote—a shrewd, wily, solitary scavenger—that serves as the central theme of Jack Olsen's ragingly indignant, beautifully written and deeply moving book, perhaps the most gripping and important work of its kind since the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

Spend a day and night in the forest! Learn about this wooded habitat through the fascinating animals that call it home. Leap from tree to tree with a squirrel searching for breakfast. Pounce with a fox on the forest floor. Soar with a red-tailed hawk as the sun sets.

Using engaging storytelling, A Reverence for Rivers draws listeners into the ethical dilemmas facing rivers worldwide, through stories about seven rivers Fausch came to know well. From the Salmon River, Oregon to the Sarufutsu River, Japan, he addresses threats like increasing water demands, habitat fragmentation, overfishing, and climate change.

The Last Great Mountain tells the story of the first ascent of Kangchenjunga the third highest but reputedly the hardest mountain in the world. It was an astonishing achievement for a British team led by Everest veteran Charles Evans. Drawing on interviews, diaries and unpublished accounts, Mick Conefrey begins his story in 1905 with the disastrous first attempt on the mountain by a team led by Aleister Crowley, explores the three dramatic German expeditions of the the late 1920s and brings it all to a climax 50 years later with the first ascent by Joe Brown and George Band.

A seed falls from a plant. A mouse eats the seed. An owl eats the mouse. Each animal gets energy from its food. How does energy flow from one living thing to another? Let’s investigate food chains and food webs!

In her new essay collection, the beloved author of High Tide in Tucson brings to us from one of history's darker moments an extended love song to the world we still have. From its opening parable gleaned from recent news about a lost child saved in an astonishing way, the book moves on to...

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