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OverviewFull Product DetailsAuthor: Bernd HeinrichPublisher: Harvard University Press Imprint: Harvard University Press Edition: New edition Dimensions: Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.20cm , Length: 23.50cm Weight: 0.318kg ISBN: 9780674445512ISBN 10: 0674445511 Pages: 208 Publication Date: 01 September 1991 Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational , Tertiary & Higher Education Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Out of stock  The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available. Table of ContentsReviewsHeinrich's stated purpose is to 'tell about the natural links forged between one's life and a life in science.' He succeeds magnificently. His prose reflects Thoreau's empathy with nature and the contemporary naturalist's technical knowledge...This meticulously observed book will please scientists, but it will also delight non-scientist readers who wonder what, in this increasingly polymerized world, is truly human and truly natural. -- John Wilkes San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle Heinrich is quintessentially the curious naturalist, happiest when stalking the odd bird, pursuing caterpillars, or observing rafts of whirligig beetles along a lakefront. In this charming and stylish volume, he combines biographical details with his economic-ecological approach to flora and fauna - embellishing the whole with precisionist pencil drawings. The German-born zoologist (now at the U. of Vermont) spent his earliest years escaping from Russian-occupied areas. His family eventually settled in the woods, gathering mushrooms and other edibles to exchange for goods in town. Father was already a collector of rare birds for museums, so young Heinrich clearly grew up in the naturalist tradition. Once in the US, he describes his early academic career and a thesis on thermoregulation in insects, the opposite of a senior scientist's. Heinrich postulated - correctly - that certain moths maintained constant temperature in flight (despite changing air temperatures) by dissipating heat generated by flight muscles. This approach - how species have evolved to use energy economically - later developed into the basis of his impressive Bumblebee Economics (1979). Now Heinrich pursues the same kind of time-motion-energy-survival questions across a broader variety of creatures. We follow his reasoning in examining whirligig behavior, in a variety of predator/prey interactions, in studies of the gaudy caterpillars that taste bad and the cryptic caterpillars that use camouflage. An underlying theme is the co-evolution of species, the sense of the inter-relatedness that has created the complex economy of the natural world. This comes to the fore especially in the title chapter, in which Heinrich describes the burned-out patch on his Maine farmland that sees a succession of growth and invaders beginning with the airborne seeds of fireweed. Finally, the bumblebees descend to drink the fireweed nectar - and to inspire Heinrich's magnum opus. To be read and savored for the writing, the drawings, and the science. (Kirkus Reviews) Author InformationBernd Heinrich is Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Vermont. He has written several memoirs of his life in science and nature, including One Man’s Owl, Ravens in Winter, and A Year in the Maine Woods, which won the 1995 Rutstrum Authors’ Award for Literary Excellence. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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