Leafy Animals

In this eloquent plea for compassion and respect for all species, journalist and gardener Nancy Lawson describes why and how to welcome wildlife to our backyards. Through engaging anecdotes and inspired advice, profiles of home gardeners throughout the country, and interviews with scientists and horticulturalists, Lawson applies the broader lessons of ecology to our own outdoor spaces. Detailed chapters address planting for wildlife by choosing native species; providing habitats that shelter baby animals, as well as birds, bees, and butterflies; creating safe zones in the garden; cohabiting with creatures often regarded as pests; letting nature be your garden designer; and encouraging natural processes and evolution in the garden. The Humane Gardener fills a unique niche in describing simple principles for both attracting wildlife and peacefully resolving conflicts with all the creatures that share our world.

Welcome to the world’s bodies of water, which are populated by some really strange marine animals. This text introduces readers to the oddest creatures under the sea, including blobfish, anglerfish, sea cucumbers, deep-sea sharks, and more. Readers will learn about these creatures and the adaptations that make them unique. This high-interest title also explores important science concepts, such as survival, animal behavior, life cycles, and habitats. Readers are sure to enjoy the engaging text, colorful photographs, and sidebars that provide an in-depth look at some of the world’s strangest marine animals.

This is a reference book on the classification, distribution, ecology and control of poisonous and aggressively invasive plant species on rangeland. The plants covered include leafy spurge, snakeweeds, thistles and knapweeds, woody species such as juniper, rabbitbrush, oakbrush, mesquite and saltcedar, and other noxious weeds such as dyers woad, cheatgrass and tansy ragwort.

Many plants can ultimately survive being eaten by animals or being destroyed by people. But there’s one threat they sometimes can’t withstand—invasive plant species. Readers will learn how invasive plants appear and how they defeat native plants to stake their claim. Engaging language uses the topic of invasive plants to explain how living things are connected, and how one upset to an ecosystem’s balance can have repercussions for all that depend on it for survival. Colorful photographs and informative captions enhance the text to give readers a comprehensive look at invasive plants and the dangers they pose.

This book illuminates the various aspects of Escherichia coli, including its pathotypes, virulence factors, and antimicrobial resistance. It also presents new insights into the scientometric analysis of the E. coli knowledge landscape, novel molecular diagnostic platforms, novel antimicrobial agents, and E. coli-based DNA amplification-expression technology for the automatic assembly of concatemeric open reading frames and proteins.

People have long used wild plants as food and medicine, and for a myriad of other important cultural applications. While these plants and the foraging activities associated with them have been dismissed by some observers as secondary or supplementaryÑor even backwardÑtheir contributions to human survival and well-being are more significant than is often realized. Eating on the Wild Side spans the history of human-plant interactions to examine how wild plants are used to meet medicinal, nutritional, and other human needs. Drawing on nonhuman primate studies, evidence from prehistoric human populations, and field research among contemporary peoples practicing a range of subsistence strategies, the book focuses on the processes and human ecological implications of gathering, semidomestication, and cultivation of plants that are unfamiliar to most of us. Contributions by distinguished cultural and biological anthropologists, paleobotanists, primatologists, and ethnobiologists explore a number of issues such as the consumption of unpalatable and famine foods, the comparative assessment of aboriginal diets with those of colonists and later arrivals, and the apparent self-treatment by sick chimpanzees with leaves shown to be pharmacologically active. Collectively, these articles offer a theoretical framework emphasizing the cultural evolutionary processes that transform plants from wild to domesticatedÑwith many steps in betweenÑwhile placing wild plant use within current discussions surrounding biodiversity and its conservation. Eating on the Wild Side makes an important contribution to our understanding of the links between biology and culture, describing the interface between diet, medicine, and natural products. By showing how various societies have successfully utilized wild plants, it underscores the growing concern for preserving genetic diversity as it reveals a fascinating chapter in the human ecology. CONTENTS 1. The Cull of the Wild, Nina L. Etkin Selection 2. Agriculture and the Acquisition of Medicinal Plant Knowledge, Michael H. Logan & Anna R. Dixon 3. Ambivalence to the Palatability Factors in Wild Food Plants, Timothy Johns 4. Wild Plants as Cultural Adaptations to Food Stress, Rebecca Huss-Ashmore & Susan L. Johnston Physiologic Implications of Wild Plant Consumption 5. Pharmacologic Implications of "Wild" Plants in Hausa Diet, Nina L. Etkin & Paul J. Ross 6. Wild Plants as Food and Medicine in Polynesia, Paul Alan Cox 7. Characteristics of "Wild" Plant Foods Used by Indigenous Populations in Amazonia, Darna L. Dufour & Warren M. Wilson 8. The Health Significance of Wild Plants for the Siona and Secoya, William T. Vickers 9. North American Food and Drug Plants, Daniel M. Moerman Wild Plants in Prehistory 10. Interpreting Wild Plant Foods in the Archaeological Record, Frances B. King 11. Coprolite Evidence for Prehistoric Foodstuffs, Condiments, and Medicines, Heather B. Trigg, Richard I. Ford, John G. Moore & Louise D. Jessop Plants and Nonhuman Primates 12. Nonhuman Primate Self-Medication with Wild Plant Foods, Kenneth E. Glander 13. Wild Plant Use by Pregnant and Lactating Ringtail Lemurs, with Implications for Early Hominid Foraging, Michelle L. Sauther Epilogue 14. In Search of Keystone Societies, Brien A. Meilleur

Engaging and thought-provoking, this book examines how humans see and treat other animals and argues that we should extend equal consideration and respect to all beings, human and nonhuman alike. Our world is plighted by ‘isms’ such as racism and sexism, but we may have overlooked a very important one: speciesism. Speciesism is a form of discrimination against those who don’t belong to a certain species. It drives us to see nonhuman animals as objects, rather than individuals with their own interests and with the ability to feel and suffer. This book questions all of the assumptions speciesism is based upon. It raises many challenging questions over humans' very complicated attitudes toward other animals. Thinking about how animals are used as well as the suffering of wild animals, and what the future may be for all beings, this book calls for society to seriously take into account the interests of all animals. For all who care about animals, or simply how to make the world a better place, this book is essential reading.