Secrets of nature unveiled
The Secret Network of Nature: The Delicate Balance of All Living Things By Peter Wohlleben, Penguin Random House, $37
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Peter Wohlleben knows a thing or two about nature.
He’s the author of The Hidden Life of Trees and The Inner Life of Animals, both bestsellers, and this is the third in the trilogy telling us more about the natural world around us.
He’s an ecologist, working in forestry in Germany, who has observed what makes this world tick and can explain it to us ordinary folk.
For instance, trees influence the Earth’s rotation. Wolves can alter the course of a river. Earthworms control wild boar populations. Forests can make it rain. Everything is connected, but we barely notice as we go about our human business. Wohlleben notices.
He relates how everything works together, with plants, rivers, animals, rocks and weather co-operating, and what happens when these partnerships are interrupted.
He describes how his own yard is full of forget-me-nots, only possible because they are supported by ants. When the forget-me-nots form seeds, they are covered with a fat and sugarrich outside shell. That’s chips and chocolate to ants. The colony eats them, worker ants cart the seeds off and drop them, making new forgetme-nots.
It’s fascinating stuff. Well worth a read and a bit of wonder.
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