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Microbe science for gardeners : secrets to better plant health / by Pavlis, Robert,author.(CARDINAL)833391;
Includes bibliographical references and index.1. Introduction -- 2. The world under the microscope -- 3. Bacteria -- 4. Fungi -- 5. Yeast -- 6. Nematodes -- 7. Protozoa -- 8. Viruses -- 9. More microbes -- 10. Microbe communities -- 11. Plants love microbes -- 12. Manipulating microbes -- 13. Bioinoculants for the garden -- 14. Pathogens."Microscopic organisms are as important to plant growth as water and light. Microbe Science for Gardeners highlights the essential role of microbes in plant biosystems and soil health, provides practical how-to gardening advice for enhancing plant microbiomes and preventing disease, and debunks common gardening myths."--
Subjects: Handbooks and manuals.; Gardening.; Microorganisms.; Plant-microbe relationships.; Plants;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Symbiotic relationships : animals and plants working together / by Huddleston, Emma,author.(CARDINAL)814392; Nishiguchi, Michele,1962-consultant.(CARDINAL)892744;
Living together -- Mutualism -- Commensalism -- Parasitism and predation -- Evolution -- Fast facts -- Stop and think.Around the world, animals work with other living things to create unique and balanced ecosystems. Bees help plants make seeds. Birds scatter seeds, so plants can grow. Gophers loosen the soil, letting water and nutrients easily reach roots. Investigate the amazing ways animals help each other and the environment.Includes online resources (page 47) and index.
Subjects: Symbiosis; Animal behavior; Animal-plant relationships; Pollination; Herbivores; Plant-microbe relationships;
Available copies: 5 / Total copies: 5
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The hidden half of nature : the microbial roots of life and health / by Montgomery, David R.,1961-author.(CARDINAL)334846; Biklé, Anne,author.(CARDINAL)334845;
Includes bibliographical references and index.Dead dirt -- Thinking small -- Looking into life -- Better together -- War on the soil -- Underground allies -- Too close to home -- Inner nature -- Invisible enemies -- Feuding saviors -- Personal alchemists -- Tending the garden -- Courting ancient friends -- Cultivating health."Prepare to set aside what you think you know about yourself and microbes. Good health--for people and for plants--depends on Earth's smallest creatures. [This book] tells the story of our tangled relationship with microbes and their potential to revolutionize agriculture and medicine, from garden to gut"--Dust jacket flap.
Subjects: Conservation of natural resources.; Crops.; Health promotion.; Microbiology; Soil microbiology.;
Available copies: 8 / Total copies: 8
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Water always wins : thriving in an age of drought and deluge / by Gies, Erica,author.;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 297-327)."Water Always Wins transports us around the world and back through time, exposing us to better ways to live with water. Gies introduces us to water experts the world over as they search for clues to water's past and present, using close observation, historical research, ancient animal and human wisdom, and cutting-edge science to effect change. We become more aware of the ways in which modern civilizations speed water away, erasing its slow phases on the land. But that's when, Gies says, 'the magic happens': the slow phases absorb floods, store water for droughts, and feed natural systems. Innovators in what she calls the Slow Water movement are accommodating that desire, and showing us how to forge a more resilient future"--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Water conservation.; Water resources development.; Freshwater ecology.; Eau;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 3
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The nature of life and death : every body leaves a trace / by Wiltshire, Patricia E. J.,author.(CARDINAL)786689;
From mud tracks on a quiet country road to dirt specks on the soles of walking boots, forensic ecologist Patricia Wiltshire uses her decades of scientific expertise to find often-overlooked clues left behind by criminal activity. She detects evidence and eliminates hypotheses armed with little more than a microscope, eventually developing a compelling thesis of the who, what, how, and when of a crime. Wiltshire's remarkable accuracy has made her one of the most in-demand police consultants in the world, and her curiosity, humility, and passion for the truth have guided her every step of the way. A riveting blend of science writing and true-crime narrative, The Nature of Life and Death details Wiltshire's unique journey from college professor to crime fighter: solving murders, locating corpses, and exonerating the falsely accused. Along the way, she introduces us to the unseen world all around us and underneath our feet: plants, animals, pollen, spores, fungi, and microbes that we move through every day. Her story is a testament to the power of persistence and reveals how our relationship with the vast natural world reaches far deeper than we might think.
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Case studies.; Wiltshire, Patricia E. J.; Women forensic scientists; Criminal investigation;
Available copies: 17 / Total copies: 19
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Magical mushrooms, mischievous molds / by Hudler, George W.(CARDINAL)333675;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-243) and index.Classification and naming -- What fungi do and how they do it -- Fungi as pathogens of food crops -- Fungi as agents of catastrophic tree diseases -- Ergot of grain crops -- Mycotoxins: toxic by-products of fungal growth -- Mycoses: fungus diseases of humans -- Medicinal molds -- Yeasts for baking and brewing -- Edible and poisonous mushrooms -- Hallucinogenic mushrooms -- Wood decay -- Interactions of fungi and insects -- Symbiotic relationships of fungi with plants.In this book, George Hudler leads us on a tour of an often-overlooked group of organisms, which differ radically from both animals and plants. Along the way the author stops to ponder the marvels of nature and the impact of mere microbes on the evolution of civilization. Nature's ultimate recyclers not only save us from drowning in a sea of organic waste, but also provide us with food, drink, and a wide array of valuable medicines and industrial chemicals.
Subjects: Fungi.;
Available copies: 5 / Total copies: 9
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Life counts : cataloguing life on earth / by Gleich, Michael.(CARDINAL)328201; United Nations Environment Programme.(CARDINAL)149220;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 276-279).Statisticians on safari: our methods for counting the world -- Fossils: nature's methods for counting the world -- The great chroniclers: changing reasons for studying nature -- Human censuses: changing reasons for studying human populations -- Expedition to planet Earth: the world we have yet to discover -- Extinctions: losing species before their roles are understood -- Threatened and threatening: our love-hate relationship with nature and its conservation -- Progress through catastrophes: how extinctions further evolution -- Sustainable use: a new method for protecting species -- Wild economics: calculating nature's worth -- Fair dealing: who gets nature's dividends -- Preserving diversity: the next fifty years -- Maxing out: how many people can the earth support? -- The future of life -- Humans and nature in numbers.Six billion people live on earth, but we share the planet with trillions of other life-forms, ranging from bacteria to whales. They make up life's infrastructure and are in effect the underpinnings of human existence. Life counts shows why we must preserve this biodiversity: if we don't, scientists predict, the earth may lose the ability to support its inhabitants within the next fifty years. Through color illustrations and narration, readers learn that each animal on earth--whose numbers are greater than our galaxy's stars--as well as each plant and each microbe, plays a role essential to the life of the planet and, in surprising ways, human economies and health. The authors weigh scientist's and international governments' best ideas on how we can protect these living things and hence our world. Life counts: a worldwide balance sheet is part of the larger Life Counts Project, designed to raise awareness across the globe of the importance of the world's biodiversity.
Subjects: Statistics.; Animal populations; Animal populations;
Available copies: 2 / Total copies: 2
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Most delicious poison : the story of nature's toxins--from spices to vices / by Whiteman, Noah,author.(CARDINAL)881003;
Deadly daisies -- Forests of phonolics and flavonoids -- Toxic, titillating, tumor-killing terpenoids -- Dogbane and digitalis -- Hijacked hormones -- Abiding alkaloids -- Caffeine and nicotine -- Devil's breath and silent death -- Opioid overlords -- The herbivore's dilemma -- The spice of life -- Nutbeg, tea, opium, and cinchona -- The future pharmacopoeia.""An evolutionary biologist tells the story of nature's toxins and why we are attracted--and addicted--to them, in this 'magisterial, fascinating, and gripping tour de force' (Neil Shubin). A deadly secret lurks within our spice racks, medicine cabinets, backyard gardens, and private stashes. Scratch beneath the surface of a coffee bean, a red pepper flake, a poppy seed, a mold spore, a foxglove leaf, a magic-mushroom cap, a marijuana bud, or an apple seed, and we find a bevy of strange chemicals. We use these to greet our days (caffeine), titillate our tongues (capsaicin), recover from surgery (opioids), cure infections (penicillin), mend our hearts (digoxin), bend our minds (psilocybin), calm our nerves (CBD), and even kill our enemies (cyanide). But why do plants and fungi produce such chemicals? And how did we come to use and abuse some of them? Based on cutting-edge science in the fields of evolution, chemistry, and neuroscience, Most Delicious Poison reveals: The origins of toxins produced by plants, mushrooms, microbes, and even some animals; The mechanisms that animals evolved to overcome them; How a co-evolutionary arms race made its way into the human experience; And much more. This perpetual chemical war not only drove the diversification of life on Earth, but also is intimately tied to our own successes and failures. You will never look at a houseplant, mushroom, fruit, vegetable, or even the past five hundred years of human history the same way again" --
Subjects: Botanical surveys.; Informational works.; Toxins; Human-plant relationships.;
Available copies: 14 / Total copies: 16
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The amoeba in the room : lives of the microbes / by Money, Nicholas P.,author.(CARDINAL)330432;
Includes bibliographical references and index.Eden -- Lenses -- Leviathan -- Dirt and water -- Air -- Naked ape -- Vulcan's Forge and Dante's Hell -- New Jerusalem."In The Amoeba in the Room, Nicholas Money explores the extraordinary breadth of the microbial world and the vast swathes of biological diversity that can be detected only using molecular methods. Although biologists have achieved a remarkable level of understanding about the way multicellular organisms operate, Money shows that most people continue to ignore the fact that most of life isn't classified as either plant or animal. Significant discoveries about the composition of the biosphere are making it clear that the sciences have failed to comprehend the full spectrum of life on earth, which is far more diverse than previously imagined. Money's engaging work considers this diversity in all its forms, exploring environments from the backyard pond to the ocean floor to the "mobile ecosystem" of our own bodies. A revitalized vision of life emerges from Money's lively narrative of the lowly, one in which we are challenged to reconsider our existence in proper relationship to the single-celled protists, bacteria, and viruses that constitute most of life on earth. Proposing a radical reformulation of biology education and research in the life sciences, The Amoeba in the Room is a compelling romp through the least visible and yet most prodigiously magnificent aspects of life on earth"--
Subjects: Microbial ecology.; Microbiology.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The hidden kingdom of fungi : exploring the microscopic world in our forests, homes, and bodies / by Seifert, Keith A.,author.; Dunn, Rob,writer of foreword.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."For readers of Entangled Life and The Hidden Life of Trees comes an illuminating account of the "invisible" fungi that share our world: from the air we breathe to the dust beneath our feet. The Hidden Kingdom of Fungi traces the intricate connections between fungi and all life on Earth to show how these remarkable microbes enrich our lives: from releasing the carbon in plants for the benefit of all organisms to transmitting information between trees, to producing life-changing medicine, to adding umami flavor and B vitamins to our food. Divided into sections, each one exploring an environment where fungi live, this enthralling, science-backed book ventures into our homes, bodies, farms, and forests to profile the fungi that inhabit these environments, most of them invisible to the naked eye. Along the way, the author, the esteemed career mycologist Keith Seifert, explains the latest research into where these fungi came from: how yeast, lichens, slimes, and molds evolved and adapted over millions of years. And he shows us that, surprisingly, fungi share almost a quarter of human genes. We may have more in common with yeast and slime than we think ... But not all fungi are good for us. In fact, fungal diseases lead to over 1 million deaths each year and more than a quarter of our food goes to waste. How can we strike a better balance with our microbial cousins, both for their sake and ours? The Hidden Kingdom of Fungi urges us to better understand our relationship with fungi--and to plan our future with them in mind--while revealing their world in all its beautiful complexity"--
Subjects: Fungi; Fungi.;
Available copies: 11 / Total copies: 13
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