...is a 37-year-old book by ecologist Paul Colinvaux. The storyline of this non-fiction is detailing out the scientific reason behind why nature appears to be the way it is. The author interestingly reviews how botanists, biologists, ecologists of the past have extricated answers to various biodiversity-based mysteries. For starters, one of the most intriguing findings mentioned in the book is dispelling the myth of existence of Tyrannosaurus rex, using tools as fundamental as the second law of thermodynamics! Other areas that are traversed upon include nature of soil based on geographical location, how these influence the variety of species of plant growth, how plant community exists socially, only energy-rich blue wavelength reaching & doubling back from the depths of the ocean - contributing to the blue-colored nature of sea, less energy efficiency extracted from consumed food being one of the primary reasons for the question: "why big fierce animals are rare" and so on...
Take home message: "Peaceful coexistence, not struggle, is the rule in our Darwinian world". Unfortunately, the big fierce animal called mankind is aggressively competing with all other kinds in it's arduous effort to raise more & more young. Will the juggernaut of a mankind efficiently destroy all else?
