I mentioned a while back that I was looking for books that would talk about the kind of creatures I found in my back yard. The Urban Naturalist isn't quite the book I was looking for--I am hoping for an actual study of animal interactions--but it's a start.
Garber describes the kinds of plants, animals, and insects that typically do well in U. S. cities, everything from mugwort to seagulls and ravens. He approaches the city as another natural environment, watching to see what lives there and in what kinds of habitats. There are brief discussions of ways that we, as humans, can make cities more hospitable to more species, and comments on ways in which, occasionally, cities are better for some animals than the country (fewer agricultural pesticides ranks high on the list).
The book is an encyclopedic list of species rather than an overall study, and some entries are more interesting than others, as he varies between a more detached tone and one of personal involvement. Garber's enthusiasm for weeds is contagious, and there are touches of humor in some of the entries, such as the one on cockroaches--In Germany, German cockroaches are "called Russian cockroaches, but in the Soviet Union, they are called South European roaches. No one seems to want to accept responsibility for the origin of this invertebrate."
The two big drawbacks of the book are its age--there is time for quite a bit of change between 1987 and 2010--and the absence of color photographs. Many of the weeds and several of the different animal species he describes are very similar in appearance, and the occasional black and white sketch is no help at all to the amateur weeding her yard.
Worth checking out of the library but not a keeper, not unless a later, updated edition is issued.
Side note: It did answer one of my earlier gardening questions: Were the yellow jackets responsible for the fact that there were many fewer fritillaries last year? Probably they were. Yellow jackets eat both nectar and other insects.
I was surfing the web and found your blog due to your working on The Broken Hourglass, but read this post. I just started reading "Bringing Nature Home" by Douglas Tallamy. It has a similar focus, but this one is more on the suburbs. How we've managed to destroy a whole lot of native habitat in our backyards by planting non-native species. But of course, we can replant natives. So I just purchased some black eyed susan flower seeds (which will help insects and butterflies) and will plant them soon. (Mostly to counteract the guilt I have for planting an invasive species a few years ago that is currently taking over my yard.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to take a look at Tallamy's book, thanks for the recommendation.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I enjoyed about Garber's work, though, was that while he was interested in native species, he was also examining cities and their suburbs as completely unique environments in their own right & as fascinating environments worth studying. I'm going to check and see if I can get hold of any later books on the same subject.
Oh, and another book you might enjoy: Tinkering with Eden: A Natural History of Exotic Species in America by Kim Todd. Todd discusses the introduction of a number of species we consider common and asks at what point a species becomes "native."
ReplyDeleteIn The Urban Naturalist I said urban ecosystems were the newest, fastest growing, most important ecosystems in the world. I was the first ecologist to stand up to fellow ecologists who refused to accept urban ecology as a serious discipline. Because biologists were too involved traveling to faraway prestigious pristine places, thinking that's where real ecology takes place, I decided to take my argument to a different audience. That's why I published The Urban Naturalist hoping to find a mass market. And it worked. The book was reviewed in the New York Times Book Review Section, and then it was reviewed by major publications around the world. And then slowly but surely, the biologists who didn't get it, started to finally get it. Now there are PhD programs in urban ecology. In 1987 professors thought it was beneath them to conduct research in their backyards. Now they are vying for huge grants to study the ecosystems we inhabit. Now they are all excited by what lives all around us. I published The Urban Naturalist with John Wiley and Sons because it publishes serious scientific work by serious scientists, and because they vet their work with serious scientists, and because they let me straddle the fence, writing for scientists and for a popular audience. That was back in 1987 and the book is still in print (it was reissued by Dover as a Science Classic). Now that it's 25 years since The Urban Naturalist first came out, I'm working on a new edition, featuring how the newest, fastest growing, most important ecosystems in the world keep on changing and growing at breakneck speed. If there are topics you want me to cover in the new edition, please let me know: stevendgarber@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteIn The Urban Naturalist I said urban ecosystems were the newest, fastest growing, most important ecosystems in the world. I was the first ecologist to stand up to fellow ecologists who refused to accept urban ecology as a serious discipline. Because biologists were too involved traveling to faraway prestigious pristine places, thinking that's where real ecology takes place, I decided to take my argument to a different audience. That's why I published The Urban Naturalist hoping to find a mass market. And it worked. The book was reviewed in the New York Times Book Review Section, and then it was reviewed by major publications around the world. And then slowly but surely, the biologists who didn't get it, started to finally get it. Now there are PhD programs in urban ecology. In 1987 professors thought it was beneath them to conduct research in their backyards. Now they are vying for huge grants to study the ecosystems we inhabit. Now they are all excited by what lives all around us. I published The Urban Naturalist with John Wiley and Sons because it publishes serious scientific work by serious scientists, and because they vet their work with serious scientists, and because they let me straddle the fence, writing for scientists and for a popular audience. That was back in 1987 and the book is still in print (it was reissued by Dover as a Science Classic). Now that it's 25 years since The Urban Naturalist first came out, I'm working on a new edition, featuring how the newest, fastest growing, most important ecosystems in the world keep on changing and growing at breakneck speed. If there are topics you want me to cover in the new edition, please let me know: stevendgarber@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteA new edition? Seriously?
ReplyDeleteAwesome!