The Secret Network of Nature

Book

• subject:: Nature / Animals / General
• subject:: Nature / Ecosystems & Habitats / General
• subject:: Nature / Plants / Trees
• subject:: Science / Life Sciences / Ecology

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The Secret Network of Nature by Peter Wohlleben

01/07/22 Introduction: 9

Because of a fish? The earth’s ecosystems, it seems, are just a bit too complex for us to compartmentalise them and draw up simple rules of cause and effect. Even conservation measures can have unexpected results. Would you expect, for example, that the recovery of crane populations in Europe affects the production of Iberian ham?

01/07/22 Introduction: 9

Things can also go awry when a new species is added to a habitat: the introduction of a non-native fish, for example, can lead to a massive reduction in the local elk population

01/07/22 2 Salmon in the Trees: 29

The key is the isotope nitrogen-15, which in the Pacific Northwest is found almost exclusively in the ocean – or in fish.

01/07/22 2 Salmon in the Trees: 30

A striking study from Japan shows how important the trees’ legacy is for the oceans. Katsuhiko Matsunaga, a marine chemist at Hokkaido University, discovered that fallen leaves leach acids into streams and rivers that are then swept into the ocean. There, the acids fuel the growth of plankton, the first and most important link in the food chain. So because of the forest there are more fish? It would appear so. Matsunaga advised local fishing companies to plant trees along the coastline and riverbanks: more trees would mean more leaves falling into the water and, in time, increased tree cover, leading to increased numbers of fish and oysters for these local fisheries to harvest.

01/07/222 Salmon in the Trees: 38

A tree that grows quickly rots quickly, and therefore never has a chance to grow old

01/07/222 Salmon in the Trees: 38

In undisturbed ancient forests, youngsters have to spend their first 200 years waiting patiently in their mothers’ shade

01/07/223 Creatures in Your Coffee: 44

Flood’ is no exaggeration. A heavy storm cloud can rain down 30,000 cubic metres of water per square kilometre – in just a few minutes

01/07/223 Creatures in Your Coffee: 45

Our landscapes, however, are not formed by steady, normal and peacefully babbling brooks, but by rare extreme weather events

01/07/223 Creatures in Your Coffee: 46

Just a millimetre of erosion amounts to the loss of almost 1,000 tonnes of soil per square kilometre

01/07/224 Why Deer Taste Bad to Trees: 57

ÐEER HAVE A love-hate relationship with trees. They don’t actually like forests, but we think of them as forest animals, because most of the time that’s where we find them

01/07/224 Why Deer Taste Bad to Trees: 58

Most of the forest is dark, because only 3 per cent of the sun’s light penetrates the canopy. For the plants under the trees this makes it pitch-black

01/07/225 Ants – Secret Sovereigns: 75

A research team from Imperial College London discovered that they move more slowly when they cross terrain that has previously been walked over by ants

01/07/227 The Funeral Feast: 89

Wolf cubs have been observed playing with ravens; they remember their smell and come to regard them as members of their community

01/07/229 Sabotaging Ham Production: 121

An auroch looks out at us from behind the eyes of every cow, albeit, genetically speaking, from a great distance

01/07/2210 How Earthworms Control Wild Boar: 134

Incidentally, in the event of some catastrophe, it would be much more effective for people to plough the land in search of earthworms instead of reaching for their guns.

01/08/2212 What’s Climate Got to Do with It?: 164

Such rapid short-term changes have happened time and again in earth’s history, and every time, many forms of life died out abruptly. At the moment, we’re staring at rising carbon dioxide levels like a deer caught in the headlights, while the thing that should concern us most is the rate of change. Higher temperatures are not in and of themselves bad, as long as nature has time to adapt.

01/08/2213 It Doesn’t Get Any Hotter Than This: 175

Beeches, for example, are so sensitive that if they grow in a clearing they get sunburn.

01/10/2214 Our Role in Nature: 186

The problem, then, wouldn’t have been that Stone Age people were cold, but perhaps that they were hungry. They hunted large herbivores, and large herbivores like to eat young trees. The largest of these herbivores were aurochs and wisent (aka bison), as well as horses and rhinoceros

01/10/2214 Our Role in Nature: 191

Corroborating this inference is that it takes a native forest in central Europe about 500 years to achieve a stable balance

01/10/2215 The Stranger in Our Genes: 208

Other characteristics from these dalliances are still active today, including a tendency towards depression and an addiction to tobacco products