Here is a spectacular, thought-provoking, and highly informative guide to the fascinating story of ecology. Superb color photographs of animals, plants, and ecosystems reveal the ideas and discoveries that have changed our understanding of life around us. See how plants store their food supply, how dung enriches the soil, how biodiversity is measured, the damage caused by acid rain, and a field-digger wasp capturing a fly. Learn how plants create their own food, how and when the world's human population "exploded", how your back yard provides a small-scale model of life all over the Earth. Discover the links in the seashore food chain, how the buffalo was saved from extinction, why insects such as locusts are subject to population explosion, natural pest control, and much, much more!