
Over 7 Billion People Depend On Plants For Healthy, Productive, Secure Lives, But Few Of Us Stop To Consider The Origin Of The Plant Kingdom That Turned The World Green And Made Our Lives Possible. And As The Human Population Continues To Escalate, Our Survival Depends On How We Treat The Plant Kingdom And The Soils That Sustain It. Understanding The Evolutionary History Of Our Land Floras, The Story Of How Plant Life Emerged From Water And Conquered The Continents To Dominate The Planet, Is Fundamental To Our Own Existence. In Making Eden David Beerling Reveals The Hidden History Of Earth's Sun-shot Greenery, And Considers Its Future Prospects As We Farm The Planet To Feed The World. Describing The Early Plant Pioneers And Their Close, Symbiotic Relationship With Fungi, He Examines The Central Role Plants Play In Both Ecosystems And The Regulation Of Climate. As Threats To Plant Biodiversity Mount Today, Beerling Discusses The Resultant Implications For Food Security And Climate Change, And How These Can Be Avoided. Drawing On The Latest Exciting Scientific Findings, Including Beerling's Own Field Work In The Uk, North America, And New Zealand, And His Experimental Research Programmes Over The Past Decade, This Is An Exciting New Take On How Plants Greened The Continents.
This book investigates the evolutionary history of land plants and their critical role in shaping Earth's climate and sustaining human civilization. David Beerling, a professor of plant science, utilizes his extensive field research and experimental data to trace the transition of plant life from aquatic environments to the colonization of continents. He argues that understanding this deep history is essential for addressing contemporary challenges related to food security and environmental stability.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Experts recognize this work as a synthesis of paleobotany and modern climate science that bridges the gap between evolutionary history and current ecological crises. Readers frequently note the accessibility of the prose despite the technical depth of the scientific research presented.
Page Count:
320
Publication Date:
2019-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0192519212
ISBN-13:
9780192519214
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!