the group of celebrated biologists: L. E. Alonso, A. Alonso, T. S. Schulenberg, and F. Dallmeier, eds., Biological and Social Assessments of the Cordillera de Vilcabamba, Peru (Washington, DC: Conservation International, Center for Applied Biodiversity Sciences, 2001).
the most biologically diverse: Norman Myers, et al., “Biodiversity Hotspots for Conservation Priorities,” Nature 403 (February 24, 2000), 853–58.
during past ice ages: Mark B. Bush, Miles R. Silman, and Dunia H. Urrego, “48,000 Years of Climate and Forest Change in a Biodiversity Hot Spot,” Science 303, no. 5659 (February 6, 2004), 827–29.
“shoestring distributions”: Michael Tennesen, “Uphill Battle,” Smithsonian 37, no. 5 (August 2006), 78–83.
a sixth of the world’s plant life: Author interview with Tom Schulenberg, July 2013.
The palpable haste of modern biologists: Anthony D. Barnosky, et al., “Has the Earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction Already Arrived?” Nature 471 (March 2, 2011), 51–57; Norman Myers and Andrew Knoll, “The biotic crisis and the future of evolution,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98, no. 10 (May 8, 2001), 5389–92.
It took Homo sapiens less than 200,000 years: www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/worldbalance/numb-nf.html.
history of earth as a twenty-four-hour: http://www.geology.wisc.edu/homepages/g100s2/public_html/history_of_life.htm.
Recoveries followed all the mass extinctions: Douglas Erwin, Extinction: How Life on Earth Nearly Ended 250 Million Years Ago (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 1–30; Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin, The Sixth Extinction: Patterns of Life and the Future of Humankind (New York: Anchor Books, 1996), 39–58.
“From the wreckage of mass extinctions”: Erwin, Extinction, 15.
“With them, Earth’s biodiversity remains”: Barnosky, et al., “Has the Earth’s Sixth Mass Extinction Already Arrived?” Nature 471 (March 3, 2011), 51–57.
“Virtually 99.999 percent of all life”: Author interview with Hans-Dieter Sues, April 16, 2012.
1 A MASS EXTINCTION: THE CRIME SCENE
The Capitan Reef, though long dead: National Park Service, Geology Field Notes, Guadalupe National Park, Texas, http://www.nature.nps.gov/geology/parks/gumo.
enormous depression known as the Delaware Basin: Author interview with Jonena Hearst, November 6, 2012.
During the Permian period this gallery of life: Erwin, Extinction, 2–7.
It hasn’t been that long since man: “Fossils and the Birth of Paleontology: Nicholas Steno,” Understanding Evolution, University of California, http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/history_04.
The awareness of fossils grew: “William Smith (1769–1839),” University of California Museum of Paleontology, www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/smith.html.
Geologists discovered that layers of rock in North America: Jonathan Weiner, The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time (New York: Vintage Books, 1995), 109.
These upheavals presented: Stephen Jay Gould, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002), 745.
Perhaps the most famous of the five extinction events: Leakey and Lewin, The Sixth Extinction, 47–56; http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1968/alvarez-bio.html.
a million times more energy: “Experts Reaffirm Asteroid Impact Caused Mass Extinction,” University of Texas at Austin, http://www.utexas.edu/news/2010/03/04/mass_extinction/ March 4, 2010.
huge tidal waves spread: Peter Ward, Future Evolution: An Illuminated History of Life to Come (New York: Times Books, 2001), 24–26.
The first vertebrates: Author interview with Jonena Hearst; “Geological Time: The Permian; Terrestrial Animal Life and Evolution of Herbivores,” Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, http://paleobiology.si.edu/geotime/main/htmlversion/permian2.html.
best studied Permian-Triassic boundary sequences in the world: Erwin, Extinction, 83.
This eruption occurred about 252 million years ago: Seth D. Burgess, Samuel Bowring, and Shu-zhong Shen, “High-precision timeline for earth’s most severe extinction,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111, no. 9 (February 10, 2014), 3316–21.
The end result of the buildup of CO2: Scott Lidgard, Peter J. Wagner, and Mathew A. Kosnik, “The Search for Evidence of Mass Extinction,” Natural History (September 2009), 26–32.
Floods skipped across the earth: Erwin, Extinction, 144–45.
In a 2007 paper in Earth and Planetary Science Letters: Andrew H. Knoll, et al., “Paleophysiology and end-Permian mass extinction,” Earth and Planetary Science Letters (2007), 295–313, www.sciencedirect.com.
30 percent of the species of plants and animals: Author interview with Andrew Knoll, April 24, 2012.
the arrival of man: Guy Gugliotta, “The Great Human Migration: Why humans left their African homeland 80,000 years ago to colonize the world,” Smithsonian (July 2008).
2 ORIGINAL SYNERGY
chemistry is often underrated: William Schlesinger and Emily Bernhardt, Biogeochemistry: An Analysis of Global Change (Waltham, MA: Academic Press, 2013), 20–32.
“the road to life on planet Earth”: Author interview with William Schlesinger, October 16, 2011.
Alexander Oparin independently suggested that all the ingredients for life: http://biology.clc.uc.edu/courses/bio106/origins.htm.
In the 1950s, Stanley Miller: Nick Lane, Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution (New York: W. W. Norton, 2009), 8–33.
Possible solutions emerged: Toshitaka Gamo, et al., “Discovery of a new hydrothermal venting site in the southernmost Mariana Arc,” Geochemical Journal 38 (2004), 527–34.
Around the turn of the twenty-first century: William Martin and Michael J. Russell, “On the origin of biochemistry at an alkaline hydrothermal vent,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 362 (2007), 1887–925; author phone and email interviews with Michael J. Russell, January 29, 2013.
For life to really get going: David Bielo, “The Origin of Oxygen in Earth’s Atmosphere,” Scientific American (August 19, 2009), http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/origin-of-oxygen-in-atmosphere/.
These guys promoted photosynthesis: Lane, Life Ascending, 60–69.
Oxygen made the planet livable: Fred Guterl, The Fate of the Species: Why the Human Race May Cause Its Own Extinction and How We Can Stop It (New York: Bloomsbury, 2012), 41–44.
life had to wait about four billion years: “Oxygen-Free Early Oceans Likely Delayed Rise of Life on Planet,” University of California, Riverside (January 10, 2011), http://newsroom.ucr.edu/2520.
The Burgess Shale, the famous quarry of Cambrian life: Leakey, The Sixth Extinction, 13–37.
Our first really good display of what nature was up to: Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1989), 53–70.
soft body parts: Leakey, The Sixth Extinction, 15–16.
They were an odd bunch: Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Paleobiology, Burgess shale website: (a) http://paleobiology.si.edu/burgess/opabinia.html; (b) http://paleobiology.si.edu/burgess/amiskwia.html; (c) http://paleobiology.si.edu/burgess/anomalocaris.html.
The development of vision: Lane, Life Ascending, 172–205.
Animal life has grown quite larger: Author trip in early summer 2012 to Kenya and Tanzania as a guest of Leslea Hlusko at the University of California, Berkeley, and Jackson Njau at Indiana University at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. Ngorongoro Basin was the first stop.
Ngorongoro Crater became: UNESCO, Culture, World Heritage Centre, “Ngorongoro Conservation Area: Outstanding Universal Value,” http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/39.
Despite the government threat to shoot poachers on sight: Jeffrey Gettleman, “Elephants Dying in Epic Frenzy as Ivory Fuels Wars and Profits,” New York Times, September 8, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/04/world/africa/africas-elephants-are-being-slaughtered-in-poaching-frenzy.html.
3 THE GROUND BELOW THE THEORIES
Beagle rowed up to the island of San Cristóbal: Weiner, The Beak of the Finch, 21–23 and 354–81.
When Darwin returned to England: Ibid., 28–29.
William and Henry Blanford: Ted Nield, Supercontinent: Ten Billion Years in the Life of Your Planet (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 30–35.
Britain’s Captain Robert Scott: Ibid., 64–67; Sian Flynn, “The Race to the South Pole,” BBC History in Depth, March 3, 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwone/race_pole_01.shtml.
Scott’s second in command: The National Museum: Royal Navy (UK), “Biography: Captain Robert Scott,” Royal Naval Museum Library, 2004.
Alfred Wegener, a German geophysicist: Nield, Supercontinent, 14.
island biogeography: Ben G. Holt, et al., “An Update of Wallace’s Zoogeographic Regions of the World,” Science 339, no. 6115 (January 4, 2013), 74–78; UC Berkeley, “Biogeography: Wallace and Wegener,” Understanding Evolution, http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/history_16.
considered an island for one organism: Paul R. Ehrlich, David S. Dobkin, and Darryl Wheye, “Island Biogeography,” 1988, https://www.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/Island_Biogeography.html.
typical example of a landlocked island: Michael Tennesen, “Expedition to the clouds,” International Wildlife 28, no. 2 (March/April 1998), 22–29.
all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare’s: Alan Weisman, The World Without Us (New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2007), 35.
The brown tree snake: Ker Than, “Drug-filled Mice Airdropped Over Guam to Kill Snakes,” National Geographic News, September 24, 2010.
Burmese pythons into Florida: Michael Tennesen, “Python Predation: Big snakes poised to change US ecosystems,” Scientific American, January 20, 2010.
into the underground caverns of Powell’s Cave: Michael Tennesen, “When Juniper and Woody Plants Invade, Water May Retreat,” Science 322, no. 5908 (December 12, 2008), 1630–31.
thickets that don’t allow enough light: Steve Archer, David S. Schimel, and Elizabeth A. Holland, “Mechanisms of Shrubland Expansion: Land Use, Climate of CO2,” Climatic Change 29 (1995), 91–99.
Tallgrass Prairie Preserve near: The Nature Conservancy, “Oklahoma Tallgrass Prairie Preserve,” http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/unitedstates/oklahoma/placesweprotect/tallgrass-prairie-preserve.xml; I attended a conference session on this at the 2011 Ecological Society of American Convention in Austin, Texas.
leaks in Boston’s underground pipelines: Nathan Phillips, et al., “Mapping urban methane pipeline leaks: methane leaks across Boston,” Environmental Pollution 173 (2013), 1–4.
4 EVOLVING OUR WAY TOWARD ANOTHER SPECIES
how man developed: Tim D. White, “Human Evolution: The Evidence,” in Intelligent Thought: Science versus the Intelligent Design Movement, edited by John Brockman (New York: Vintage, 2006), 65–81.
studying their teeth: Theresa M. Grieco, et al., “A Modular Framework Characterizes Micro-and Macroevolution of Old World Monkey Dentitions,” Evolution 67, no. 1 (January 2013), 241–59.
crocodiles and their possible effect on hominid intelligence: Jackson K. Njau and Robert Blumenschine, “Crocodylian and mammalian carnivore feeding traces on hominid fossils from FLK 22 and FLK NN 3, Plio-Pleistocene Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania,” Journal of Human Evolution 63, no. 2 (August 2012), 408–17.
crocodile victims would show fewer tooth marks: Jackson K. Njau and Robert Blumenschine, “A diagnosis of crocodile feeding traces on larger mammal bone, with fossil examples from Plio-Pleistocene Olduvai Basin, Tanzania,” Journal of Human Evolution 50, no. 2 (2006), 142–62.
In order to survive like this: Author interviews with Jackson Njau and Leslea Hlusko, June 22–30, 2012.
Proconsul africanus: Douglas Palmer, Origins: Human Evolution Revealed (London: Mitchell Beazley, 2010), 35.
Australopithecus afarensis: Ibid., 58.
Homo habilis: Ibid., 98.
Homo erectus: Ibid., 119.
Homo sapiens: Ibid., 174–76.
tool technology of early man: Stephen S. Hall, “Last of the Neanderthals,” National Geographic 214, no. 4 (October 2008), 38–59.
Examinations of Neanderthal: Palmer, Origins, 240.
a day in the Tour de France: Matt Allyn, “Eating for the Tour de France,” Bicycling Magazine, July 13, 2011, http://www.bicycling.com/garmin-insider/featured-stories/eating-tour-de-france.
Homo sapiens moved up into Europe: Palmer, Origins, 241.
“Homo sapiens had the ability to develop trade”: Author interview with Rick Potts, May 3, 2012.
“Mama,” “papa,” “cup,” and “up”: Author interview with Rob Shoemaker, November 18, 2011.
if Bonnie had the ability to make decisions: Chikako Suda-King, “Do orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) know when they do not remember?” Animal Cognition 11, no. 1 (2008), 21–42.
sign language and a system of lexicons: Paul Raffaele, “Speaking Bonobo: Bonobos have an impressive vocabulary, especially when it comes to snacks,” Smithsonian 37, no. 8 (November 2006), 74; author interview with Sue-Savage Rumbaugh, November 21, 2011.
cognitive abilities to perceive speech: Author interview with Lisa Heimbauer, November 17, 2011.
the FOXP2 speech gene: Elizabeth Kolbert, “Sleeping with the Enemy: What happened between the Neanderthals and us?” The New Yorker 87, no. 24 (August 15–22, 2011), 64–75.
The town was established in 1781: University of California, Los Angeles, “A Short History of Los Angeles,” http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Chumash/LosAngeles.html.
developed in the last one hundred years: “Los Angeles County, California: Quick Facts from the UA Census Bureau,” http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/06037.html.
world’s population growth: Robert Kunzig, “Seven Billion: Special Series,” National Geographic, January 2011.
India’s population growth: Kenneth R.Weiss, “Beyond 7 Billion, Part 1: The Biggest Generation,” Los Angeles Times, July 22, 2012.
China’s one-child policy: Kenneth R.Weiss, “Beyond 7 Billion, Part 4: The China Effect,” Los Angeles Times, July 22, 2012.
The Population Bomb: Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich, “The Population Bomb Revisited,” The Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development 1, no. 3 (2009), Population-Bomb-Revisted-Paul-20096-5.pdf.
5 WARNING SIGN I: THE SOIL
This land was transformed into grasslands: Jan Zalasiewicz, The Earth After Us: What Legacy Will Humans Leave in the Rocks? (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008), 86.
Lawes, entrepreneur and agricultural scientist: Rothamsted Research, “Rothamsted Research: Where Knowledge Grows,” Science Strategy, 2012–17, www.rothamsted.ac.uk.
reduction of biodiversity: Weisman, The World Without Us, 192–94.
“sample archive”: Ibid., 194–202.
tending plants was easier than hunting game: Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending, The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution (New York: Basic Books, 2009), 67–71.
While we were nomadic: Author interview with Ian Tattersall, curator emeritus of the American Museum of Natural History, April 18, 2012.
sample archive: Weisman, The World Without Us, 194–202.
That afternoon, out in the fields: Justin Gillis, “Norman Borlaug, Plant Scientist Who Fought Famine, Dies at 95,” New York Times, September 13, 2009.
20:20 Wheat: “Rothamsted Research,” Science Strategy, 2012–17, www.rothamsted.ac.uk.
Jonathan Lynch: http://plantscience.psu.edu/directory/jpl4; http://plantscience.psu.edu/research/labs/roots/about; author interview with Jonathan Lynch, August 2011.
Susan McCouch: http://vivo.cornell.edu/display/individual138; author interview with Susan McCouch, August 2011.
potential of terra preta: Michael Tennesen, “B
lack Gold of the Amazon: Fertile, charred soil created by pre-Columbian peoples sustained late settlements in the rain forest,” Discover Magazine 28, no. 4 (April 2007), 46–52.
Amazonian soils: Manuel Arroyo-Kalin, “Slash-burn-and-churn,” Quaternary International 249 (August 18, 2011), 4–18.
to the Calhoun Experimental Forest: Daniel Richter, et al., “Evolution of Soil, Ecosystem, and Critical Zone Research at the USDA FS Calhoun Experimental Forest,” in USDA Forest Service Experimental Forests and Ranges: Research for the Long Term (New York: Springer, 2014).
where the soil had been excavated: Daniel Richter and Dan H. Yaalon, “The Changing Model of Soil, Revisited,” Soil Science Society of America Journal 76, no. 3 (May 2012), 766–78.
West-central Florida produces much of the US phosphorus: Michael Tennesen, “Phosphorus Fields: Phosphorus and nitrogen fertilizers drive modern agriculture, but they are also poisoning the planet,” Discover, December 2009, 55–59.
Gaseous emissions of nitrogen can drift with the wind: Michael Tennesen, “Sour Showers: Acid Rain Returns—This Time It Is Caused by Nitrogen Emissions,” Scientific American 303, no. 3 (June 21, 2010), 23–24.
sample from the year 1963: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, “Nuclear Test Ban Treaty,” www.jfklibrary.org.
green roofs: Stuart R. Gaffin, Cynthia Rosenzweig, and Angela Y. Y. Kong, “Adapting to climate change through urban green infrastructure,” Nature Climate Change 2, no. 704 (2012).
author of The Vertical Farm: Dickson Despommier, The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century (New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2010), 3–11.
cattle-rearing: UN News Centre, “Rearing cattle produces more greenhouse gases than driving cars, UN report warns,” November 29, 2006.
soils are critical components of the earth’s biosphere: Ronald Almundson, “Protecting Endangered Soils,” Geotimes 43, no. 3 (March 1998).
43 percent of earth’s land to agricultural production: Author interview with Anthony Barnosky, March 2, 2012.
murder of 800,000 Rwandans: Robert Kunzig, “Seven Billion: Special Series,” National Geographic, January 2011, 62.
The Next Species: The Future of Evolution in the Aftermath of Man Page 29
