Harvard University Press - NATURE

Vibrational Communication in Animals

Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Peggy S. M. Hill
In creatures as different as crickets and scorpions, mole rats and elephants, there exists an overlooked channel of communication: signals transmitted as vibrations through a solid substrate. In this book, Hill summarizes a generation of groundbreaking work by scientists around the world on this long understudied form of animal communication.
Hardcover May 2008

Beautiful Minds

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Maddalena Bearzi
Craig B. Stanford
Beautiful Minds explains how and why apes and dolphins are so distantly related yet so cognitively alike and what this teaches us about another large-brained mammal: Homo sapiens. Noting that apes and dolphins have had no common ancestor in nearly 100 million years, Bearzi and Stanford describe the parallel evolution that gave rise to their intelligence.
Hardcover April 2008

In Pursuit of the Gene

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

James Schwartz
Schwartz presents the history of genetics through the eyes of a dozen or so central players, beginning with Charles Darwin and ending with Nobel laureate Hermann J. Muller. This book offers readers the background they need to understand the latest findings in genetics and those still to come in the search for the genetic basis of complex diseases and traits.
Hardcover April 2008

Mean and Lowly Things

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Kate Jackson
In 2005 Jackson ventured into the remote swamp forests of the northern Congo to collect reptiles and amphibians. This book is Jackson’s unvarnished account of her research on the front lines of the global biodiversity crisis—coping with interminable delays in obtaining permits, learning to outrun advancing army ants, subsisting on a diet of Spam and manioc, and ultimately falling in love with the strangely beautiful flooded forest.
Hardcover April 2008

On Zion's Mount

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Jared Farmer
On Zion’s Mount shows how, paradoxically, the Mormons created their homeland at the expense of the local Indians—and how they expressed their sense of belonging by investing Mt. Timpanogos with “Indian” meaning.
Hardcover April 2008

A Walk around the Pond

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Gilbert Waldbauer
In his hallmark companionable style, Gilbert Waldbauer introduces us to the aquatic insects that have colonized ponds, lakes, streams, and rivers, especially those in North America. Along the way we learn about the diverse forms these arthropods take, as well as their remarkable modes of life. While learning about the evolution, natural history, and ecology of these insects, readers also discover more than a little about the scientists who study them.
Paperback April 2008

Manipulative Monkeys

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST

Susan Perry
Joseph H. Manson, With
This book takes us into a Costa Rican forest teeming with simian drama, where since 1990 primatologists Perry and Manson have followed four generations of capuchins. The authors describe behavior as entertaining--and occasionally as alarming--as it is recognizable: competition and cooperation, jockeying for position and status, peaceful years under an alpha male devolving into bloody chaos, and complex traditions passed from one generation to the next. Interspersed with their observations are the authors' colorful tales of the challenges of tropical fieldwork.
Hardcover February 2008

A Reef in Time

Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST

J.E.N. Veron
Veron presents the geological history of the Great Barrier Reef, the biology of coral reef ecosystems, and a primer on what we know about climate change. He concludes that most coral reefs will be dead from mass bleaching and irreversible acidification within the coming century unless greenhouse gas emissions are curbed. If we don't have the political will to confront the plight of the world's reefs, he argues, current processes already in motion will become unstoppable, bringing on a mass extinction the world has not seen for 65 million years.
Hardcover January 2008

The Smaller Majority

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Piotr Naskrecki
This large-format volume of color photographs takes readers on a magnificent visual journey into the remote world of small tropical organisms critical to biodiversity. A unique introduction to the marvelous variety of the overlooked life under our feet, Naskrecki's book returns us to a child's sense of wonder with a fully informed, deeply felt understanding of the importance of the world's smaller, teeming life.
Paperback October 2007

Hispaniola

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Biodiversidad a Través de un Recorrido Fotográfico
Eladio Fernández
Foreword by Edward O. Wilson
Introduction by Philippe Bayard
Translated by Irina P. Ferreras
Translated by Gustavo Romero
A Dominican-based conservationist and photographer, Fernández is documenting the efforts of a distinguished team of international scientists as they unravel the workings of evolution being played out on the island of Hispaniola. What Fernández captures here so vividly is not just the amazing variety of living creatures that have erupted in evolutionary isolation, but the urgency of scientists racing to give that variety a name before it vanishes.
Hardcover October 2007

Fossil Invertebrates

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Paul D. Taylor
David N. Lewis
The plates in this book capture incredibly detailed impressions and casts of ancient life, contrasting them with forms, such as the horseshoe crab and the chambered nautilus, that persist today virtually unchanged. Paul D. Taylor and David N. Lewis, both of the Natural History Museum, London, have written a comprehensive and accessible resource, one that provides undergraduates and amateur fossil enthusiasts with a means to understand and interpret this rich fossil record.
Paperback October 2007

Plants and Empire

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EDT

Londa Schiebinger
In the eighteenth century, epic scientific voyages were sponsored by European imperial powers to explore the natural riches of the New World, and uncover the botanical secrets of its people. Bioprospectors brought back medicines, luxuries, and staples for their king and country. Plants and Empire explores the movement, triumph, and extinction of knowledge in the course of encounters between Europeans and the Caribbean populations.
Paperback September 2007