Ecosystem Science

Through cutting-edge data and research, drawing on science, psychology, history, and philosophy, The Eight Master Lessons of Nature will leave listeners with a feeling of hope, excitement, and joy. It is a dazzling statement about the powers of physical, mental, and spiritual wellness that come from reclaiming our relationship with Mother Nature. Lessons about mystery, loss, the fine art of rising again, how animals make us smarter, and how the planet’s elders make us better at life are unforgettable and transformative.

Millions follow Dr. Evan Antin and his wildlife adventures through social media and on his popular Animal Planet television show Evan Goes Wild. Now in his first audiobook, World Wild Vet, Evan takes us to the deep blue seas, swimming with giant whale sharks with “puppy dog eyes," to jungles filled with venomous snakes (who are more afraid of you than you are of them), to a race across the savannah and against the clock to save rhinos from the clutches of poachers—all in the name of adventure and a deep love for the wild around us.

We harbor roughly the same number of microbes as we have cells. This complex ecosystem is crucial to our health, affecting many processes including immunity, child development, and bone density regulation. Research in this area has exploded, and in this audiobook, we highlight some of the most exciting work on how the microbiome develops, its influence on brain and behavior, and implications in both contributing to and treating various disorders.

It is difficult to conceive of the vast scale of the history of life on Earth, from the very first living organisms sparking into life in hydrothermal deep-sea vents to the dizzying diversity of life today. The evolution of life is a sweeping epic of a tale, with twists and turns, surprising heroes and unlikely survivors. The Earth beautifully distils this complex story into a meaningful scale. In taking a closer look at 47 carefully selected organisms over 15 periods in our planetary history, this audiobook tells the whole story of life on Earth.

In The Ecosystem Economy, two McKinsey & Company senior partners offer an incisive and eye-opening look at the emerging ecosystem economy and what it means for companies used to familiar sector siloes. In the book, you'll explore how the most successful companies in the new economy aren't the ones that have applied old-school best practices but, instead, have adopted entirely new mindsets and approaches for a fundamentally transforming market.

Throughout history, trees have determined the tools we use, the boats we build, the stories we tell about the world and ourselves, the songs we sing, and some of our most important rituals. As such, our lives are intertwined with those of the trees and woodlands around us. In this journey deep into the woods, Wyl Menmuir travels the length and breadth of Britain and Ireland to meet the people who plant trees, the ecologists who study them, those who shape beautiful objects and tools from wood, and those who use them to help others.

A forester's fascinating stories backed by the latest scientific research illustrate how trees nurture and talk to each other. Are trees social beings? In this international best seller - which has sold more than 320,000 copies in Germany alone - forester and author Peter Wohlleben convincingly makes the case that, yes, the forest is a social network. He draws on groundbreaking scientific discoveries to describe how trees are like human families.

Several years ago, ecologist Lauren E. Oakes set out from California for Alaska's old-growth forests to hunt for a dying tree: the yellow-cedar. With climate change as the culprit, the death of this species meant loss for many Alaskans. Oakes and her research team wanted to chronicle how plants and people could cope with their rapidly changing world. Amidst the standing dead, she discovered the resiliency of forgotten forests, flourishing again in the wake of destruction, and a diverse community of people who persevered to create new relationships with the emerging environment.

Increasingly, cracks are appearing in the capacity of communities, ecosystems, and landscapes to provide the goods and services that sustain our planet's well-being. The response from most quarters has been for "more of the same" that created the situation in the first place: more control, more intensification, and greater efficiency. "Resilience thinking" offers a different way of understanding the world and a new approach to managing resources. It embraces human and natural systems as complex entities continually adapting through cycles of change.

Start a peaceful revolution by planting an edible ecosystem and sharing the experience with your neighbors. Humans have always thrived in rich, diverse, edible ecosystems. Yet most cities and suburbs are blanketed by lawns, ornamentals, and a lack of biodiversity, let alone anything edible. It is within these sterile landscapes that seeds of an edible ecosystem lie. The Edible Ecosystem Solution is a comprehensive, practical guidebook that looks at underutilized spaces to reveal the many opportunities for landscape transformation.

Discover the captivating world of wildfires with The Science of Wildfires, a comprehensive eBook that unravels the complexities of this powerful natural phenomenon. Dive into a journey that explores the very heart of wildfires, from the fundamentals of their formation to the advanced technologies used in prediction and control. Every chapter offers a deeper understanding of the multiple facets influencing wildfires, making this an invaluable resource for science enthusiasts, policy makers, and environmentalists alike. Start with an exploration of wildfire basics, where you'll learn about ...

Alexandra Morton has been called "the Jane Goodall of Canada" because of her passionate thirty-year fight to save British Columbia's wild salmon. Her account of that fight is both inspiring in its own right and a roadmap of resistance.

For the last three billion years or so, life on Earth was shaped by natural forces. Evolution tended to happen slowly, with species crafted across millennia. Then, a few hundred thousand years ago, along came a bolshie, big-brained, bipedal primate we now call Homo sapiens, and with that, the Earth’s natural history came to an abrupt end. We are now living through the post-natural phase, where humans have become the leading force shaping evolution. This audiobook considers the many ways that we’ve altered the DNA of living things and changed the fate of life on earth.

When Chris Dombrowski burst onto the literary scene with Body of Water, the book was acclaimed as “a classic” (Jim Harrison) and its author compared with John McPhee. Dombrowski begins the highly anticipated The River You Touch with a question as timely as it is profound: “What does a meaningful, mindful, sustainable inhabitance on this small planet look like in the anthropocene?”

The Fens is Britain's most distinctive, complex, man-made and least understood landscape. Francis Pryor has lived in, excavated, farmed, walked and loved the Fen Country for more than 40 years: its levels and drains, its soaring churches and magnificent medieval buildings. In The Fens, he counterpoints the history of the Fenland landscape and its transformation with the story of his own discovery of it as an archaeologist.

The world's oceans are changing at a drastic pace. In response, the people who know the ocean most intimately are taking action for the sake of our shared future. Community scientists track species in California tidepools. Researchers dive into the waters around Sydney to replant kelp forests. Scientists and First Nations communities collaborate to restore clam gardens in the Pacific Northwest.

The Accidental Ecosystem tells the story of how cities across the United States went from having little wildlife to filling, dramatically and unexpectedly, with wild creatures. Today, many of these cities have more wild animals living in them than at any time in at least the past 150 years. Why have so many cities—the most artificial and human-dominated of all Earth's ecosystems—grown rich with wildlife, even as wildlife has declined in most of the rest of the world? And what does this paradox mean for people, wildlife, and nature on our increasingly urban planet?

Animals have shaped our minds, our lives, our land, and our civilization. Humanity would not have gotten very far without them. And over the last two centuries, humans have made unprecedented advances in science, technology, behavior, and beliefs. Yet how is it that we continue to destroy the animal world and lump its magnificence under the sterile concept of biodiversity? In Beastly, author Keggie Carew seeks to re-enchant listeners with the wild world, reframing our understanding of what it is like to be an animal and what our role is as humans.

In this Very Short Introduction, Warwick Vincent outlines the essential features of lake environments and their biology, offering an up-to-date view of lake ecosystems. Vincent traces the origins of lake science (limnology) from the seminal work of Francois Forel on Lake Geneva at the edge of the Swiss Alps, to modern approaches such as environmental sensors, satellite observations, stable isotope analysis, and DNA-based technologies which are used to probe the microbial life support systems that lead from sunlight to fish.

Making earth science accessible and entertaining, The Wondrous Workings of Planet Earth explains how our planet works - and how we can protect it - from its diverse ecosystems and their inhabitants to the levels of ecology, the importance of biodiversity, the cycles of nature, and more. Science- and nature-loving listeners of all ages will delight in this utterly charming guide to our amazing home.