The World Beneath Our Feet: The Hidden Life of Soil and Why It Matters to Us All
Biographical Note: Dr. Frank Ashwood is a soil ecologist and macrophotographer, specialising in soil invertebrates. He is a Lecturer at Lincoln University and at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and obtained his PhD...
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Biographical Note: "Revelatory. Astonishing and full of delight. This book will change forever the way you see the ground beneath your feet.... Ashwood has written the definitive field guide to the world of soil and in doing so, shows just how dazzling and important this hidden world is to our survival. This is nature writing at its best and a book for our time." --Leila Philip, New York Times bestselling author of Beaverland "Soil could not have a better ambassador than Frank Ashwood. His infectious delight and love for the tiny denizens of the earth shines through, making earthworms glisten, beetles shine, and springtails leap off the page. This book will make you place your feet with care, mindful for the first time of the beautiful world beneath." --Bethany Brookshire, author of Pests "With a perfect blend of wisdom, warmth, and wonder, Frank Ashwood champions the hidden biodiversity living underground. The World Beneath our Feet is an eye-opening primer on an extraordinary and little-known realm, one that just happens to be essential to all of us living above it." --Thor Hanson, author of The Triumph of Seeds "Exhilarating, revelatory and written with a delight that is as infectious as it is irresistible, The World Beneath Our Feet is a joy." --James Bradley, author of Deep Water "This is a thrilling and delightful book. It opens a treasure chest of fascinating insights into our most neglected ecosystem." --George Monbiot, author of Feral "Vital, brilliant, wholly absorbing... a masterpiece of science writing, and a subject that is the most important of all to our own survival." --Isabella Tree, co-author of The Book of Wilding "This book has massive, understated charm. I used merely to like earthworms. Now I truly admire them. Ashwood has made soil science enchanting." --Noreen Masud, author of A Flat Place "Illuminating. . . . [Ashwood] combines accessible science writing with a palpable sense of wonder. . . . This transforms an often-overlooked ecosystem into a source of awe and urgent concern." --Publishers Weekly Publisher Marketing: A vivid tour into the subterranean that encourages us to look downwards, revealing how the earth's most biodiverse frontier sustains all life above the soil surface The ground beneath us hums with a staggering abundance of winding roots, interconnecting fungal networks, wriggling creatures, and mind-blowing microbial life. This hidden ecosystem is the single most biodiverse habitat on the planet. Over half of all the Earth's species exist underfoot, where decaying matter is transformed into new life; just a handful of soil can contain an entire world. Without soil, there would be no life as we know it--and yet we rarely take the time to know the countless lives happening below. In The World Beneath Our Feet, soil ecologist Frank Ashwood dives deep into this precious ecosystem, spanning the globe from the frozen landscape of Greenland to the black soil deposits of the Amazon and the Eurasian Steppe, while also examining the jaw-dropping evolutionary adaptations that make lives very alien from our own possible. Unearthing soil layers one at a time, Ashwood reveals every sublayer to be a distinct macrocosm, teeming with organisms essential to our planet's wellbeing. Supported by interviews with global soil biologists, as well as his own expert research, Ashwood shows us how life at a microscopic scale impacts us all. Powerfully illuminating the dark depths of the earth, and accompanied by the author's own up-close photography, which magnifies and reveals creatures only millimeters long, The World Beneath Our Feet opens our eyes to the hidden and wondrous world of soil--perhaps the greatest unexplored frontier on our planet. Review Citations:
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