Northeastern Naturalist B1 Noteworthy Books 2016 Vol. 23, No. 1 The Nature of the Place: A History of Living with the Land in Columbia County, NY. Conrad Vispo. 2014. Adonis Press, Hilldale, NY. 361 pp. $30.00, softcover, ISBN 9780932776464. This book is one of the fruits of the first decade of research and education at the Farmscape Ecology Program, and provides an exciting invitation to explore the rich heritage and nature of Columbia County, and our place within it. Through abundantly illustrated chapters on the ecological histories of our forests, fields, waters, and soils, this book describes people and pursuits that have shaped this land, and some of the native plants and animals who have joined us along the way. As Vispo explains, “Traces of the historic intertwining of ecology and human use lace our landscape, from the stone walls in our forests to the weeds in our fields, the chemistry of our waters, and the condition of our soils. These traces are links to our heritage with the land and useful background for understanding where we are today. They also hint at trends and potentials for the future.” What Should a Clever Moose Eat? Natural History, Ecology, and the North Woods. John Pastor, foreword by Bernd Heinrich. 2016. Island Press, Washington DC. 336 pp. $30.00, softcover, ISBN 9781610916776. How long should a leaf live? When should blueberries ripen? And what should a clever Moose eat? Questions like these may seem simple or downright strange—yet they form the backbone of natural history, a discipline that fostered some of our most important scientific theories, from natural selection to glaciation. Through careful, patient observations of the organisms that live in an area, their distributions, and how they interact with other species, we gain a more complete picture of the world around us, and our place in it. In What Should a Clever Moose Eat?, John Pastor explores the natural history of the North Woods, an immense and complex forest that stretches from the western shore of Lake Superior to the far coast of Newfoundland. The North Woods is one of the most ecologically and geologically interesting places on the planet, with a host of natural history questions arising from each spruce or Sugar Maple. From the geological history of the region to the shapes of leaves and the relationship between aspens, caterpillars, and predators, Pastor delves into a captivating range of topics as diverse as the North Woods themselves. Through his meticulous observations of the natural world, scientists and nonscientists alike learn to ask natural history questions and form their own theories, gaining a greater understanding of and love for the North Woods—and other natural places precious to them. In the tradition of Charles Darwin and Henry David Thoreau, John Pastor is a joyful observer of nature who makes sharp connections and moves deftly from observation to theory. Take a walk in John Pastor’s North Woods—you'll come away with a new appreciation for details, for the game trails, beaver ponds, and patterns of growth around you. You won't look at the natural world in the same way again. Forests in Our Changing World: New Principles for Conservation and Management. Joe Landsberg and Richard Waring. 2014. Island Press, Washington, DC. 224 pp. $35.00, softcover, ISBN 9781610914963. Scientists tell us that climate change is upon us and the physical world is changing quickly with important implications for biodiversity and human well-being. Forests cover vast regions of the globe and serve as a first line of defense against the worst ef fects of climate change, but only if we keep them healthy and resilient. Forests in Our Changing World tells us how to do that. Authors Joe Landsberg and Richard Waring present an overview of forests around the globe, describing basic precepts of forest ecology and physiology and how forests will change as earth’s climate warms. Drawing on years of research and teaching, they discuss the values and uses of both natural and plantation-based forests. In easy-to-understand terms, they describe the ecosystem services forests provide such as clean water and wildlife habitat, present economic concepts important to the management and policy decisions that affect forests, and introduce the use of growth-andyield models and remote-sensing technology that provide the data behind those decisions. This book is a useful guide for undergraduates as well as managers, administrators, and policy makers in environmental organizations and government agencies looking for a clear overview of basic forest processes and pragmatic suggestions for protecting the health of forests. Station 119: From Lifesaving to Marine Research. Kenneth W. Able (Author), Steve Warren (Editor). 2015. Down the Shore Publishing Corp, West Creek, NJ. 126 pp. $16.95, softcover, ISBN 9781593220969. Station 119 is the story Noteworthy Books Received by the Northeastern Naturalist, Issue 23/1, 2016 Northeastern Naturalist Noteworthy Books 2016 Vol. 23, No. 1 B2 of the mission of the men and women who work at the Rutgers University Marine Field Station. It is also the story of the station itself—while the station now may play a role in saving the planet, it began with a mission of saving lives. This is the fascinating history of a remote former Coast Guard station near Little Egg Inlet on the Jersey Shore and its reincarnation as a marine research facility. The station is now staffed by scientists and students studying the environment in the Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve (JCNERR), near Long Beach Island. What Is Landscape? John R. Stilgoe. 2015. The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. 280 pp. $19.95, hardcover, ISBN 9780262029896. Landscape, John Stilgoe tells us, is a noun. From the old Frisian language (once spoken in coastal parts of the Netherlands and Germany), it meant shoveled land: landschop. Sixteenth-century Englishmen misheard or mispronounced this as landskep, which became landskip, then landscape, designating the surface of the earth shaped for human habitation. In What Is Landscape?, Stilgoe maps the discovery of landscape by putting words to things, zeroing in on landscape’s essence but also leading sideways expeditions through such sources as children’s picture books, folklore, deeds, antique terminology, out-of-print dictionaries, and conversations with locals. (“What is that?” “Well, it’s not really a slough, not really, it’s a bayou …”) He offers a highly original, cogent, compact, gracefully written narrative lexicon of landscape as word, concept, and path to discoveries. What Is Landscape? is an invitation to walk, to notice, to ask: to see a sandcastle with a pinwheel at the beach and think of Dutch windmills—markers of territory won from the sea; to walk in the woods and be amused by the Elizabethans’ misuse of the Latin silvaticus (people of the woods) to coin the word savages; to see in a suburban front lawn a representation of the meadow of a medieval freehold. Discovering landscape is good exercise for body and for mind. This book is a wonderful guide and companion to that exercise—to understanding, literally and figuratively, what landscape is. Roads and Ecological Infrastructure: Concepts and Applications for Small Animals. Kimberly M. Andrews, Priya Nanjappa, and Seth P.D. Riley. 2015. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD. 304 pp. $75.00, hardcover, ISBN 9781421416397. Few of us think twice about driving on roads. Yet the very presence of roads and the act of driving on them can impact the ecological infrastructure that supports an animal’s daily life. What chance does a turtle have of successfully laying its eggs when it needs to traverse a busy highway? Is it realistic to expect small mammals to breed when an interstate thoroughfare subdivides their population? These are the sorts of challenges faced by small, often slowmoving, animals, challenges that road engineers and ecologists are trying to address. For countless small species, vehicles traveling at high speeds are nothing less than missiles shooting across migration pathways. For too many animals, the danger can lead to the loss of populations, in part because they simply are not programmed to react to traffic. Salamanders faced with a 2-lane road between the forest and their aquatic breeding site, for example, will typically cross that road regardless of the congestion. The result can be hundreds of flattened animals in a single night. Roads and Ecological Infrastructure is the first book to focus on reducing conflict between roads and small animals. Highlighting habitat connections and the challenges and solutions from both transportation and ecological perspectives, the volume covers various themes, including animal behavior related to roads and design approaches to mitigate the negative effects of roads on wildlife. The chapter authors—from transportation experts to university researchers—each promote a goal of realistic problem solving. Conceptual and practical, this book will influence the next decade or more of road design in ecologically sensitive areas and should prevent countless unnecessary wildlife fatalities. Jewels of the Plains: Wildflowers of the Great Plains Grasslands and Hills. Claude A. Barr, Edited by James H. Locklear. 2015. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN. 296 pp. $27.95, hardcover, ISBN 9780816698011. Describing the natural history and garden merits of more than 500 species, this book captures the unique beauty, resilience, and variety of wildflowers in the Great Plainsand is considered the authoritative guide by native plant enthusiasts and horticulturists. Claude A. Barr did not set out to be a writer. In 1910, he homesteaded 160 acres of prairie in the southwest corner of South Dakota, intending to become a farmer. Despite challenging conditions, Barr fell in love with the land and its native flora. He began contributing profiles of plains wildflowers to gardening Northeastern Naturalist B3 Noteworthy Books 2016 Vol. 23, No. 1 The Northeastern Naturalist welcomes submissions of review copies of books that publishers or authors would like to recommend to the journal’s readership and are relevant to the journal’s mission of publishing information about the natural history of the northeastern US. Accompanying short, descriptive summaries of the text are also welcome. magazines, which precipitated requests for seed and led him to start a mail-order nursery, Prairie Gem Ranch. What began as a Depression-era sideline eventually gained a worldwide clientele, and Barr became a respected ambassador for the wildflowers of this part of the American landscape. Decades of observing plants in the wild and growing them for his nursery, as well as careful study of scientific sources, gave Barr unequaled knowledge that culminated in this acclaimed book. Wonderfully written and deeply researched, Jewels of the Plains is more than a field guide or how-to manual. It’s a pioneering text on native plant horticulture that details plant life on the prairie in the voice of one with intimate familiarity with the subject. Each description reads like a mini nature essay, giving insight into both the plants and Barr’s engaging personality. Edited to incorporate new scientific information, this edition includes an Introduction and supplemental notes by botanist and horticulturalist James H. Locklear. He places Barr’s remarkable life and work in historic and scientific context, illuminating his accomplishments from a fresh perspective. Natural History of Delmarva Dragonflies and Damselflies. Harold B. White. 2011. Rowman and Littlefield, University Press Copublishing Division/ Delaware Nature Society, Lanham, MD. 284 pp., $30.00, hardcover, ISBN 9781611490008. This book provides the first comprehensive coverage of the dragonflies and damselflies of the Delmarva Peninsula. It includes color photographs of all 129 species known to occur in the region. Each species serves as a prompt for a short essay. The collection offers an eclectic introduction to the world of dragonflies and the people who study them. There is something here for everyone from the casual reader to the expert. Keys to Lichens of North America: Revised and Expanded. Irwin M Brodo with Sylvia Duran Sharnoff, Stephen Sharnoff, and Susan Laurie-Bourque. Canadian Museum of Nature. 2016. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. 427 pp. $29.95, spiral bound softcover, ISBN 9780300195736. Created in response to requests from longtime users, this addition to the acclaimed reference to North American lichens compiles updated and expanded keys for the identification of these fascinating organisms. An ideal laboratory resource, it covers over 2000 species of lichens indigenous to the continent. There is no comparable volume available for classroom, workshop, or private use. A glossary is illustrated with photographs by Sylvia Duran Sharnoff and Stephen Sharnoff and drawings by Susan Laurie-Bourque, all from the original book. The revised keys are an indispensable identification tool for botanists, students, scientists, and enthusiasts alike. Considered a world authority on lichens and their biology, Irwin M. Brodo is emeritus research scientist at the Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa, ON. Does Altruism Exist? Culture, Genes, and the Welfare of Others. David Soloan Wilson. 2015. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. 192 pp. $27.50, hardcover, ISBN 9780300189490. David Sloan Wilson, one of the world’s leading evolutionists, addresses a question that has puzzled philosophers, psychologists, and evolutionary biologists for centuries: does altruism exist naturally among the Earth’s creatures? The key to understanding the existence of altruism, Wilson argues, lies in understanding the role it plays in the social organization of groups. Groups that function like organisms indubitably exist, and organisms evolved from groups. Evolutionists today largely agree on how functionally organized groups evolve, but Wilson’s resolution casts altruism in a new light: altruism exists but shouldn’t necessarily occupy center stage in our understanding of social behavior. After laying a general theoretical foundation, Wilson surveys altruism and group-level functional organization in our own species—in religion, in economics, and in the rest of everyday life. He shows that altruism is not categorically good and can have pathological consequences. Finally, he shows how a social theory that goes beyond altruism by focusing on group function can help to improve the human condition in a practical sense. Does Altruism Exist? puts old controversies to rest and will become the center of debate for decades to come.