Science Ecology

This Very Short Introduction audiobook celebrates the centrality of ecology in our lives. Jaboury Ghazoul explores how ecology has evolved rapidly from natural history to become a predictive science that explains how the natural world works and which guides environmental policy and management decisions.

In the misty Puerto Rican El Yunque rainforest, coquí frogs no larger than your thumb fill the air with their distinctive two-note song: “co-quí, co-quí.” They alternate routines—one night singing to attract potential mates, the next hunting to fuel up for tomorrow’s performance. In this episode, we follow a singer and a hunter amid the vibrant nighttime chorus.

At the southernmost tip of South Africa, where fresh and salt water collide, a tiny seahorse appears to levitate. Seahorses are the ocean’s slowest swimmers, but they have one of the world’s fastest muscle contractions, using it to suction up their prey. In this episode, we meander through eelgrass with a male Knysna seahorse as he twines tails with his partner, changes color to match the sand, and even gives birth to a brood of tiny seahorses.

Red pandas have thick bushy ringed tails like raccoons, but they aren’t related to panda bears or raccoons—in fact, they have no close relatives anywhere on Earth. In this episode, we wander the Himalayas with a red panda and her cubs as they munch on bamboo, practice walking in the treetops, and settle in to nap together as the first snowfall of the year covers their forest home.

California’s coast redwoods are Earth's tallest living beings, some reaching more than 350 feet high. They can also live for more than 2,000 years, outlasting entire civilizations. In this episode, we spend an evening with an ancient tree. Below ground, its roots tap into a forest-wide network; above ground, its branches harbor life in its many forms.

Against the white expanse of the Arctic tundra, a snowy owl is hardly visible as he pauses to listen for the rustling of small prey. While most Arctic birds migrate south for the winter, this owl can survive through the endless polar nights. In this episode, we follow a snowy owl as he searches for food in the dark, soaring past the footprints of polar bears, howling huskies, and snow foxes that call this wintry world home.

North Ronaldsay sheep have been roaming the shores of a Scottish isle for centuries. They outnumber people there by more than twenty to one. While most sheep graze in fields, the North Ronaldsay are a breed apart: they forage seaweed on the rocky beach. In this episode, we follow a lamb as she crosses the island’s ancient stone dyke and sees the ocean for the first time.

In a quiet forest in Sweden, a cluster of Amanita muscaria mushrooms, with their iconic red caps dotted with white spots, push through a bed of soft reindeer moss. These crimson fungi interact with all manner of species in the forest—including a squirrel, who takes a nibble and wanders away in an altered state. These enchanted mushrooms also form partnerships with the trees, trading nutrients under the soil.

What is nature? What is humanity's place in nature? And what is the relationship of society to the natural world? In an era of ecological breakdown, answering these questions has become of momentous importance for our everyday lives and for the future that we and other life-forms face. In the essays of The Philosophy of Social Ecology, Murray Bookchin confronts these questions head on, invoking the ideas of mutualism, self-organization, and unity in diversity, in the service of ever-expanding freedom.

Capybaras possess such a calm and gentle nature that many other animal species treat them as friends—including the birds who ride on their backs. In this episode, we follow a capybara as she lounges in the lagoon and covers herself in mud to repel bugs. And we’ll listen as she collectively parents her pups with the others in her herd, communicating through a complex language of whistles, clicks, and purrs.

Sixty years ago in the snowy valleys of Japan, a young snow monkey discovered a hotel’s hot spring, and others in her troop soon joined her. Now, generations of families have built their routines around their own hot springs. In this episode, we follow a young snow monkey as her troop leaps from rock to rock toward their favorite activity in winter: a long steamy soak.

Axolotls are nature's ultimate Peter Pan—amphibians that never transform past the larval stage. Found only in Mexico’s ancient lake system of Xochimilco, they've survived since the time of the Aztecs, a people who considered them sacred. In this episode, we glide through the cool, dark water with an axolotl, meandering through the floating gardens these charming creatures call home.

Fossil fuels and livestock grazing are often targeted as major culprits behind climate change and desertification. But Allan Savory, cofounder of the Savory Institute, begs to differ. The bigger problem, he warns, is our mismanagement of resources. Livestock grazing is not the problem; it's how we graze livestock. If we don't change the way we approach land management, irreparable harm from climate change could continue long after we replace fossil fuels.

*Winner of the Penn Libraries Book Prize in Sustainability* *Named a Best Book of the Year by Scientific American* This timely and captivating look at the hidden impact of light pollution is “rich in revelation and insight…lyrical” (The Wall Street Journal) and urges us to cherish natural...

Timothy Morton argues that ecological awareness in the present Anthropocene era takes the form of a strange loop or Möbius strip, twisted to have only one side. Deckard travels this oedipal path in Blade Runner when he learns that he might be the enemy he has been ordered to pursue. Ecological awareness takes this shape because ecological phenomena have a loop form that is also fundamental to the structure of how things are.

The world J.R.R. Tolkien created is one of the most beloved in all of literature, and continues to capture hearts and imaginations around the world. From Oxford to ComiCon, the Middle Earth is analyzed and interpreted through a multitude of perspectives. But one essential facet of Tolkien and his Middle Earth has been overlooked: science.

You are among the last in a long line of animals that were the likeliest to survive half a billion years of evolution. But you wouldn't be here today without all other wildlife. Over the past fifty years, we've killed three quarters of the creatures we need to keep ecosystems healthy. Now we have a choice to make: re-find our place among them, or succumb to the power of nature.

Ice is far more than frozen water—it is a force that shapes planets, preserves history, and hides some of nature’s strangest secrets. Hidden World of Ice takes you on a fascinating journey through the frozen corners of our world, uncovering the science, history, and bizarre wonders locked inside ice. From ancient glaciers that store Earth’s climate memory to the strange physics that makes ice behave unlike any other solid, this book reveals why frozen water is one of nature’s greatest mysteries.

Joe Roman reveals how ecosystems are sculpted and sustained by animals eating, pooping, and dying—and how these fundamental functions could help save us from climate catastrophe. If forests are the lungs of the planet, then animals migrating across oceans, streams, and mountains—eating...

Bekoff is recognized as a preeminent voice in the media for animal sentience and dog behavior, with high-profile appearances in Time, Life, the New York Times, New Scientist, and BBC Wildlife and on Good Morning America, 60 Minutes, and 20/20, among others.