Inheritors of the Earth - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Inheritors of the Earth write by Chris D. Thomas. This book was released on 2017-09-05. Inheritors of the Earth available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Human activity has irreversibly changed the natural environment. But the news isn't all bad. It's accepted wisdom today that human beings have permanently damaged the natural world, causing extinction, deforestation, pollution, and of course climate change. But in Inheritors of the Earth, biologist Chris Thomas shows that this obscures a more hopeful truth -- we're also helping nature grow and change. Human cities and mass agriculture have created new places for enterprising animals and plants to live, and our activities have stimulated evolutionary change in virtually every population of living species. Most remarkably, Thomas shows, humans may well have raised the rate at which new species are formed to the highest level in the history of our planet. Drawing on the success stories of diverse species, from the ochre-colored comma butterfly to the New Zealand pukeko, Thomas overturns the accepted story of declining biodiversity on Earth. In so doing, he questions why we resist new forms of life, and why we see ourselves as unnatural. Ultimately, he suggests that if life on Earth can recover from the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs, it can survive the onslaughts of the technological age. This eye-opening book is a profound reexamination of the relationship between humanity and the natural world.
Inheritors of the Earth
Inheritors of the Earth - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Inheritors of the Earth write by Chris D. Thomas. This book was released on 2017-07-06. Inheritors of the Earth available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. It is accepted wisdom today that human beings have irrevocably damaged the natural world. Yet what if this narrative obscures a more hopeful truth? In Inheritors of the Earth, renowned ecologist and environmentalist Chris D. Thomas overturns the accepted story, revealing how nature is fighting back. Many animals and plants actually benefit from our presence, raising biological diversity in most parts of the world and increasing the rate at which new species are formed, perhaps to the highest level in Earth's history. From Costa Rican tropical forests to the thoroughly transformed British landscape, nature is coping surprisingly well in the human epoch. Chris Thomas takes us on a gripping round-the-world journey to meet the enterprising creatures that are thriving in the Anthropocene, from York's ochre-coloured comma butterfly to hybrid bison in North America, scarlet-beaked pukekos in New Zealand, and Asian palms forming thickets in the European Alps. In so doing, he questions our irrational persecution of so-called 'invasive species', and shows us that we should not treat the Earth as a faded masterpiece that we need to restore. After all, if life can recover from the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs, might it not be able to survive the onslaughts of a technological ape? Combining a naturalist's eye for wildlife with an ecologist's wide lens, Chris Thomas forces us to re-examine humanity's relationship with nature, and reminds us that the story of life is the story of change.
INHERITORS OF THE EARTH: HOW NATURE IS THRIVING IN AN AGE OF EXTINCTION.
INHERITORS OF THE EARTH: HOW NATURE IS THRIVING IN AN AGE OF EXTINCTION. - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook INHERITORS OF THE EARTH: HOW NATURE IS THRIVING IN AN AGE OF EXTINCTION. write by C.D. Thomas. This book was released on . INHERITORS OF THE EARTH: HOW NATURE IS THRIVING IN AN AGE OF EXTINCTION. available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
Effective Conservation Science
Effective Conservation Science - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Effective Conservation Science write by Peter M. Kareiva. This book was released on 2018. Effective Conservation Science available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This novel text assembles some of the most intriguing voices in modern conservation biology. Collectively they highlight many of the most challenging questions being asked in conservation science today, each of which will benefit from new experiments, new data, and new analyses. The book's principal aim is to inspire readers to tackle these uncomfortable issues head-on. A second goal is to be reflective and consider how the field has reacted to challenges to orthodoxy, and to what extent have or can these challenges advance conservation science. Furthermore, several chapters discuss how to guard against confirmation bias. The overall goal is that this book will lead to greater conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity by harnessing the engine of constructive scientific scepticism in service of better results.
Darwin Comes to Town
Darwin Comes to Town - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Darwin Comes to Town write by Menno Schilthuizen. This book was released on 2018-04-03. Darwin Comes to Town available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. *Carrion crows in the Japanese city of Sendai have learned to use passing traffic to crack nuts. *Lizards in Puerto Rico are evolving feet that better grip surfaces like concrete. *Europe’s urban blackbirds sing at a higher pitch than their rural cousins, to be heardover the din of traffic. How is this happening? Menno Schilthuizen is one of a growing number of “urban ecologists” studying how our manmade environments are accelerating and changing the evolution of the animals and plants around us. In Darwin Comes to Town, he takes us around the world for an up-close look at just how stunningly flexible and swift-moving natural selection can be. With human populations growing, we’re having an increasing impact on global ecosystems, and nowhere do these impacts overlap as much as they do in cities. The urban environment is about as extreme as it gets, and the wild animals and plants that live side-by-side with us need to adapt to a whole suite of challenging conditions: they must manage in the city’s hotter climate (the “urban heat island”); they need to be able to live either in the semidesert of the tall, rocky, and cavernous structures we call buildings or in the pocket-like oases of city parks (which pose their own dangers, including smog and free-rangingdogs and cats); traffic causes continuous noise, a mist of fine dust particles, and barriers to movement for any animal that cannot fly or burrow; food sources are mainly human-derived. And yet, as Schilthuizen shows, the wildlife sharing these spaces with us is not just surviving, but evolving ways of thriving. Darwin Comes toTown draws on eye-popping examples of adaptation to share a stunning vision of urban evolution in which humans and wildlife co-exist in a unique harmony. It reveals that evolution can happen far more rapidly than Darwin dreamed, while providing a glimmer of hope that our race toward over population might not take the rest of nature down with us.
