Ecology

Award-winning Atlantic staff writer Zoë Schlanger delivers a groundbreaking work of popular science that probes the hidden world of the plant kingdom....

A groundbreaking study that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans in 1492....

When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems....

The nation’s greatest voice, David Attenborough, reads a brand-new edition of Life on Earth, now available as an audiobook for the first time....

From number one New York Times best-selling author Michael Pollan, a radical challenge to how we think about drugs, and an exploration into the powerful human attraction to psychoactive plants - and the equally powerful taboos....

Peter Wohlleben turns to the future and provides an illuminating manifesto on ancient forests: how they adapt to climate change by passing their wisdom through generations, and why our future lies in protecting them.

Drawing on his decades of field research and up-to-the-minute understanding of the latest science, renowned geologist Andrew H. Knoll delivers a rigorous yet accessible biography of Earth, charting our home planet's epic 4.6 billion-year story....

A new fully updated narrative edition of David Attenborough’s seminal biography of our world, Living Planet....

Elemental reveals how life itself shapes Earth using the elemental constituents we all share....

In an age when dire problems like the Flint water crisis or the California drought bring ever more attention to the indispensability of safe, clean, easily available water, The Death and the Life of the Great Lakes is a powerful paean to what is arguably our most precious resource....

The past is past, but it does leave clues, and Thomas Halliday has used cutting-edge science to decipher them more completely than ever before. In Otherlands, Halliday makes sixteen fossil sites burst to life....

For centuries, people have been returning to the same tired nature-versus-nurture debate, trying to determine what we learn and what we inherit. In Dancing Cockatoos and the Dead Man Test, biologist Marlene Zuk goes beyond the binary....

Since the beginning of time, humankind has looked upon nature and seen the divine. In the writings of the great thinkers across religions, the natural world inspires everything from fear, to awe, to tranquil contemplation....

When we use chemical fertilizers, we injure the microbial life that sustains plants and then become increasingly dependent on an arsenal of toxic substances. Teaming with Microbes offers an alternative to this vicious circle....

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....

Tending the Wild is an unparalleled examination of Native American knowledge and uses of California's natural resources that reshapes our understanding of native cultures and shows how we might begin to use their knowledge in our own conservation efforts....

In this classic work that continues to inspire its many listeners, James Lovelock deftly explains his idea that life on Earth functions as a single organism....

In Eager, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb reveals that our modern idea of what a healthy landscape looks like and how it functions is wrong, distorted by the fur trade that once trapped out millions of beavers from North America's lakes and rivers....

When we talk about human history, we often focus on great leaders, population forces, and decisive wars. But how has the earth itself determined our destiny? Our planet wobbles, driving changes in climate that forced the transition from nomadism to farming....

In this vulnerable and urgent memoir, Rae Wynn-Grant explores the ever-shifting relationship between humans, animals, and the earth through her personal journey to becoming a wildlife ecologist.

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....

An engrossing and revealing study of why we deem certain animals “pests” and others not—from cats to rats, elephants to pigeons—and what this tells us about our own perceptions, beliefs, and actions, as well as our place in the natural world.

An accessible and compelling story of a scientist's discovery of plant communication and how it influenced her research and changed her life....

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....

This "valuable and entertaining" (New York Times Book Review) book explores how scientists are adapting nature's best ideas to solve tough 21st-century problems. Biomimicry is a must-listen for anyone interested in the shape of our future....

How do we add to archives of ecological memory? How can we notice and document what’s missing in the landscapes closest to us? In her debut essay collection, Laura Marris reframes environmental loss by setting aside the catastrophic framework of the Anthropocene in favor of that of the Eremocene, the age of loneliness, which is marked by the dramatic thinning of wildlife populations and by isolation between and among species.

Знали ли вы, что деревья умеют дружить, обниматься и общаться между собой? Что они предупреждают друг друга о нападениях, засухах и прочих опасностях. Что мир леса — это социальная сеть, невероятно похожая на человеческие семьи. В книге "Тайная жизнь деревьев" Петер Вольлебен обращается к исследованиям ученых со всего мира, а также к своему многолетнему опыту лесника, чтобы открыть нам сокровенный, сложно организованный мир. Эта книга обязательна к прочтению каждому, кто интересуется устройством природы, а после ее прослушивания прогулка по лесу уже никогда не будет прежней.

Cinq ans après l'accord de Paris sur le climat, l'auteur constate un échec de l'entreprise. Il explique que les émissions mondiales de CO2 ont continué à augmenter, notamment à cause des pays tels que la Chine et l'Inde qui ne se sont engagés à rien. Selon lui, les dépenses consacrées à la transition écologique en Europe ne pourront rien faire face à l'explosion des émissions du tiers-monde. La température moyenne de la planète a augmenté d'environ 1°c depuis un siècle et demi.

Qualcuno si ostina a liquidare i cambiamenti climatici come fake news, ma la gran parte di noi è ben consapevole che se non modifichiamo radicalmente le nostre abitudini l'umanità andrà incontro al rischio dell'estinzione di massa. Lo sappiamo, eppure non riusciamo a crederci. E di conseguenza non riusciamo ad agire. Il problema è che l'emergenza ambientale non è una storia facile da raccontare e, soprattutto, non è una buona storia: non spaventa, non affascina, non coinvolge abbastanza da indurci a cambiare la nostra vita.

Como botánico, Robin Wall Kimmerer ha sido entrenado para hacer preguntas de la naturaleza con las herramientas de la ciencia. Como miembro de la Nación Ciudadana Potawatomi, abraza la idea de que las plantas y los animales son nuestros maestros más antiguos. En Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer reúne estas dos lentes de conocimiento para llevarnos a "un viaje tan mítico como científico, tan sagrado como histórico, tan inteligente como sabio" (Elizabeth Gilbert).

Nineteen leading literary writers from around the globe offer timely, haunting first-person reflections on how climate change has altered their lives.

You can never eat just one of whatever snack you’re munching on. You drink to excess. You get up before dawn and drive home from work in the dark. You stare at your phone or computer screen all day. You can't remember the last time you took a walk and noticed nature. You can't remember the last time you felt the sand beneath your feet. As you read this, you are craving that fresh air fix. You are so removed from natural surroundings, you've lost your spark. Even your relationships feel toxic and don't serve you.

Un CV imaginaire, une fausse identité, et un crâne rasé... "Steak Machine" est le récit d'une infiltration de quarante jours dans un abattoir industriel. Dans ce reportage glaçant, le journaliste Geoffrey Le Guilcher partage et raconte le quotidien des ouvriers : les giclées de sang dans les yeux, les doigts qui se bloquent et les défonces nocturnes. Car dans une usine qui abat deux millions d'animaux par an, le traitement indigne réservé aux bêtes s'accompagne toujours d'une violence exercée sur les hommes.

Although it is widely understood that energy and water are the world’s two most critical resources, their vital interconnections and vulnerabilities are less often recognized. This farsighted audiobook offers a new, holistic way of thinking about energy and water - a big picture approach that reveals the interdependence of the two resources, identifies the seriousness of the challenges, and lays out an optimistic approach with an array of solutions to ensure continuing sustainability.

Climate change is with us, and we need to think about the next big disturbing idea - the potentially disastrous consequences of massive numbers of environmental refugees at large on the planet. In 2020, the United Nations projects that we will have 50 million environmental refugees mostly from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. How will people be relocated and settled? Is it possible to offer environmental refugees temporary or permanent asylum? Will these refugees have any collective rights in the new areas they inhabit?

In this joyous journey around the wild edges of Britain, Christopher Hart takes us through the life, ecology and history of the humble British hedge, showing us how this much-loved (but somewhat overlooked) feature is inextricably woven into our language, history and culture. Hedges – or hedgerows – have long been an integral part of the British landscape; a bastion of privacy for our gardens, a protective presence on winding country lanes and a vital hiding place for birds and beasts on farmland.

Weisman visits an extraordinary range of the world's cultures, religions, nationalities, tribes, and political systems to learn what in their beliefs, histories, liturgies, or current circumstances might suggest that sometimes it's in their own best interest to limit their growth.

Serendipity tells the story of James Estes’s life as a naturalist and the concepts that have driven his interest in researching the ecological role of top-level predators. Using the relationships between sea otters, kelp, and sea urchins as a touchstone, Estes retraces his investigations of numerous other species, ecosystems, and ecological processes in an attempt to discover why ecologists can learn so many details about the systems in which they work and yet understand so little about the broader processes that influence these systems.

In Slime we'll meet the algae innovators working toward a sustainable future: from seaweed farmers in South Korea, to scientists using it to clean the dead zones in our waterways, to the entrepreneurs fighting to bring algae fuel and plastics to market. Ruth Kassinger takes listeners on an around-the-world, behind-the-scenes, and into-the-kitchen tour. Whether you thought algae was just the gunk in your fish tank or you eat seaweed with your oatmeal, Slime will delight and amaze with its stories of the good, the bad, and the up-and-coming.