PROLOGO - HL Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction Chris D. Thomas

Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction

Chris D. Thomas

Last annotated on Tuesday October 31, 2017

82 Highlight(s) | 57 Note(s)

Yellow highlight | Location: 48

Prologue Gains and losses
Note:PROL@@@@@@@@

Yellow highlight | Location: 49

The Vale of York

Yellow highlight | Location: 51

brown bears
Note:DOVE PRIMA C ERA L ORSO

Yellow highlight | Location: 52

wild cattle

Yellow highlight | Location: 52

the most intensively farmed parts of England,

Yellow highlight | Location: 54

specks of poppy flowers
Note:LA VITA VARIA IN UN PAESAGGIO APPARENTEMENTE UNIFORME... PAPAVERI

Yellow highlight | Location: 54

Coppery pheasants are strutting in search of fallen seeds,
Note:FAGIANI

Yellow highlight | Location: 54

dowdy field voles
Note:TOPO CAMPAGNOLO

Yellow highlight | Location: 55

greenfly
Note:AFIDE

Yellow highlight | Location: 56

Rufous foxes
Note:PREDATORI... VOLPE

Yellow highlight | Location: 56

kestrels
Note:GHEPPIO

Yellow highlight | Location: 57

harlequin ladybird beetles
Note:SCARABEI

Yellow highlight | Location: 59

The apparently denuded vale is full of species,
Note:PARADOSSO

Yellow highlight | Location: 59

harlequin ladybirds originated in Asia;
Note:QUASI TUTTI ANIMALI IMPORTATI...COCCINELLA

Yellow highlight | Location: 60

small-leaved pigmyweed in Tasmania;
Note:FELCE

Yellow highlight | Location: 60

poppies came as contaminants of grain from continental Europe;
Note:PAPAVERI

Yellow highlight | Location: 63

the basics of biology remain.
Note:ESITO

Yellow highlight | Location: 66

The rules of life continue, save Homo sapiens is now a key player.
Note:LA DIFFERENZA RISPETTO A IERI

Yellow highlight | Location: 67

human-modified Earth

Yellow highlight | Location: 68

Indian myna birds that are now at home in Florida,
Note:ESEMPI DI TRASFERIMENTI

Yellow highlight | Location: 68

agile mice that started life in Asia and then spread throughout the cities,

Yellow highlight | Location: 69

Australian wattle trees and previously endangered Californian pines that are growing wild in Africa.

Yellow highlight | Location: 71

The trickle of successful species1 taking advantage of human-created opportunities is becoming a torrent.
Note:LE SPECIE SALVATE INVOLONTARIAMENTE

Yellow highlight | Location: 74

Anthropocene epoch.

Yellow highlight | Location: 74

converted a third of the world’s vegetation to produce our food,
Note:LA GRANDE TRASFO

Yellow highlight | Location: 75

diminishing space for wild plants and animals.
Note:SPAZI

Yellow highlight | Location: 76

acidified the oceans
Note:ALTRI CAMBIAMENTI

Yellow highlight | Location: 76

changed the climate

Yellow highlight | Location: 77

hunted most of the largest land animals

Yellow highlight | Location: 77

transporting voracious predators and virulent diseases

Yellow highlight | Location: 81

the scourge of the Earth,
Note:COSÌ CI SIAMO DIPINTI

Yellow highlight | Location: 85

nature is coping surprisingly well in the human era.
Note:SORPRESA... LA NATURA SI ADATTA A NOI

Yellow highlight | Location: 107

new species have colonized landscapes that contain a mixture of arable fields, pastures, hedgerows, plantations, orchards, logged forests, ditches and towns faster than the rate at which species that used to live in the original habitats have disappeared
Note:LA SCOPERTA

Yellow highlight | Location: 110

diversity has grown in nearly all regions of the world

Yellow highlight | Location: 113

Climate change is playing its part too. More species like it hot
Note:IL CLIMA CONTRIBUISCE

Yellow highlight | Location: 115

we have carried different species with us,
Note:5 CONTINENTI

Yellow highlight | Location: 116

We are acting as a global glue,

Yellow highlight | Location: 117

a New Pangea.
Note:IL MONDO È TORNATO A ESSERE UN SUPERCONTINENTE

Yellow highlight | Location: 122

many more immigrant species have established new populations
Note:MIGRAZIONI FORZATE

Yellow highlight | Location: 123

immigration usually increases the diversity

Yellow highlight | Location: 125

The Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago, single cells came into existence over 3.5 billion years ago, creatures consisting of complex bodies took off in the last 600 million years, and the diversification of life on land has occupied the last 450 million years. On average, biological gains have tended to have the upper hand, and this increasing variety of life seems likely to continue
Note:PICCOLA STORIA DELLA TERRA.... UNA DIVERSITÀ CHE AUMENTA SENZA SOSTA

Yellow highlight | Location: 136

formation of new hybrid plant species in Europe and North America would appear to be faster
Note:IBRIDI CHE BATTONO L ESTINZIONE

Yellow highlight | Location: 138

less and less like their ancestors. Eventually, they will become separate species.
Note:L IBRIDO MUTA TOTALMENTE

Yellow highlight | Location: 138

massive acceleration in the formation of new species

Yellow highlight | Location: 139

several million
Note:LE NUOVE SPECIE

Yellow highlight | Location: 142

The default stance of conservation is to keep things as unchanged as possible
Note:LA STRATEGIA DEL PRESERVARE

Yellow highlight | Location: 145

undesirable the continuing biological gains of the human epoch.
Note:EFFETTO COLLATERALE DEI CONSERVAZII

Yellow highlight | Location: 146

to kill ‘impure’

Yellow highlight | Location: 147

idealized state
Note:ECOSISTEMA... L UTOPIA CONSERVAZ

Yellow highlight | Location: 148

We need a new rationale
Note:MANIFESTO

Yellow highlight | Location: 149

humans are regarded as part of nature,
Note:UN NUOVO PUNTO DI VISTA

Yellow highlight | Location: 151

a more optimistic approach.

Yellow highlight | Location: 152

appreciative of the biological beneficiaries of the human-altered environment,
Note:COME DOBBIAMO CAMBIARE

Yellow highlight | Location: 155

Rather than swim against the tide of ecological and evolutionary change,
Note:BASTA NUOTARE CONTRO CORRENTE

Yellow highlight | Location: 156

the old was once new.
Note:MEMENTO

Yellow highlight | Location: 159

consider the success stories