What, exactly, is life? As young children we are taught about animals such as giraffes, lions, elephants and itsy-bitsy spiders with eight legs; we learn about trees and flowers from the plant kingdom, about toadstools in the woods and fish in the sea. This teaches us to think of living things as discrete entities with characteristic ......
The Merlin Falco columbarius is Europe's smallest falcon, and its breeding presence is often regarded as a key indicator of a healthy natural environment. A highly adaptable species, it displays a variety of intriguing and contrasting behaviours across its extensive Northern Hemisphere range. Frank Rennie has spent many years observing and ......
Through a lifetime of biological and seabird research, Michael Brooke has been blessed with the opportunity to visit a huge array of islands dotted across all the oceans of the world. His is an island list fit to make the armchair traveller green with envy - and potentially seasick. Truly no island has been too far: from St Kilda to Spitsbergen, ......
Here are the remarkable and captivating tales from one woman's nearly 40-year career spent looking for bats and their roosts. Humorous and honest, she writes about these fascinating animals, and about dodgy ladders, small spaces and a multitude of characters - sometimes delightful, occasionally awful, but always human. George Bemment introduces ......
Here are the remarkable and captivating tales from one woman's nearly 40-year career spent looking for bats and their roosts. Humorous and honest, she writes about these fascinating animals, and about dodgy ladders, small spaces and a multitude of characters - sometimes delightful, occasionally awful, but always human. George Bemment introduces ......
Time outdoors is always well spent. It raises the spirits, sparks the imagination and, as research increasingly shows, measurably improves our physical and mental wellbeing. Rhythms of Nature celebrates this fundamental relationship with the natural world, and considers some ways we might rediscover it. After a career in conservation, Ian ......
Crossbills and Conifers explores an intimate natural historical connection, revealing why crossbills have become an exemplar of diversification and coevolution. Craig Benkman takes readers on his 40-year journey of research and discovery, exploring a series of unique and interrelated findings about the behavior, ecology, evolution and conservation ......
Why is life so diverse? Why are there so many different species? This book explores the origins of biodiversity, its evolution and its continuation, as well as the impact that humans are having on this natural heritage. Richly illustrated, accessible and engaging, The Game of Species is structured like the instruction manual for a board game ......
How Microbes Shape Our Lives and the World Around Us
As we continue to live through a pandemic, all eyes are on microbes: an imperceptible and pervasive threat that hangs heavy on the air and clings to surfaces. But the reality of micro-organisms is far more diverse and life-sustaining than such a notion would have us believe (hence the title of this book). Not only are they omnipresent, but we are ......
