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\"Yann Arthus-Bertrand, an aerial photographer and devoted environmental activist, explores the impact of some of the serious issues facing our planet today, all visible from space: deforestation, urban sprawl, intensive farming, pollution, natural disasters, and much more\"--Dust jacket flap.

The 10th anniversary edition A Guardian Best Book about Deforestation A New Scientist Best Book of the Year A Taipei Times Best Book of the Year \"A perfectly grounded account of what it is like to live an indigenous life in communion with one's personal spirits. We are losing worlds upon worlds.\" —Louise Erdrich, New York Times Book Review \"The Yanomami of the Amazon, like all the indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australia, have experienced the end of what was once their world. Yet they have survived and somehow succeeded in making sense of a wounded existence. They have a lot to teach us.\" —Amitav Ghosh, The Guardian \"A literary treasure…a must for anyone who wants to understand more of the diverse beauty and wonder of existence.\" —New Scientist A now classic account of the life and thought of Davi Kopenawa, shaman and spokesman for the Yanomami, The Falling Sky paints an unforgettable picture of an indigenous culture living in harmony with the Amazon forest and its creatures, and its devastating encounter with the global mining industry. In richly evocative language, Kopenawa recounts his initiation as a shaman and first experience of outsiders: missionaries, cattle ranchers, government officials, and gold prospectors seeking to extract the riches of the Amazon. A coming-of-age story entwined with a rare first-person articulation of shamanic philosophy, this impassioned plea to respect indigenous peoples' rights is a powerful rebuke to the accelerating depredation of the Amazon and other natural treasures threatened by climate change and development.

More than 200 spectacular images showcase 14 private gardens, extraordinary examples of landscape design that are inaccessible to the public, and which have never--or very rarely--been featured in any publication. From France, Spain, Italy, Germany, the Caribbean, and more, these gardens offer a dizzying range of horticultural and conceptual diversity. The designers reflect on the steps that went into bringing the garden to life, and the book concludes with biographies of landscape architects whose work is featured within, explaining the creative vision of some of the most respected design professionals working today.

Significance Nature is full of species that cooperate in mutually beneficial interactions to survive. Some are completely dependent on such relationships. How and why does this specialization evolve? We show that as the bacterium Desulfovibrio vulgaris evolved for 1,000 generations in conditions forcing cooperation with the archaeon Methanococcus maripaludis , it lost a key metabolic trait that would be required for it to grow alone in most environments. Large subpopulations lacking the capacity to respire sulfate evolved in 13 of 21 replicates. Such striking parallel evolution suggests a trade-off between performance in the mutualistic environment and maintaining the flexibility to survive alone. This result may explain why sulfate reducers share a common ancestor with many species specialized for cooperation with methanogens. Many species have evolved to function as specialized mutualists, often to the detriment of their ability to survive independently. However, there are few, if any, well-controlled observations of the evolutionary processes underlying the genesis of new mutualisms. Here, we show that within the first 1,000 generations of initiating independent syntrophic interactions between a sulfate reducer ( Desulfovibrio vulgaris ) and a hydrogenotrophic methanogen ( Methanococcus maripaludis ), D. vulgaris frequently lost the capacity to grow by sulfate respiration, thus losing the primary physiological attribute of the genus. The loss of sulfate respiration was a consequence of mutations in one or more of three key genes in the pathway for sulfate respiration, required for sulfate activation ( sat ) and sulfate reduction to sulfite ( aps A or aps B). Because loss-of-function mutations arose rapidly and independently in replicated experiments, and because these mutations were correlated with enhanced growth rate and productivity, gene loss could be attributed to natural selection, even though these mutations should significantly restrict the independence of the evolved D. vulgaris . Together, these data present an empirical demonstration that specialization for a mutualistic interaction can evolve by natural selection shortly after its origin. They also demonstrate that a sulfate-reducing bacterium can readily evolve to become a specialized syntroph, a situation that may have often occurred in nature.

Oxygen availability is highly variable during salmonid incubation in natural redds and also in aquaculture incubation systems. Hypoxia generally decreases growth and aerobic metabolism prior to hatching, in parallel with eliciting physiological modifications that enhance oxygen delivery. However, it is less-well known whether developmental hyperoxia can drive the opposite effect. Moreover, there is insufficient understanding of stage-specific developmental windows during which ambient oxygen availability may be of greater or lesser impact to incubating embryos. Here, we tested the effects of hypoxia (50% dissolved oxygen: DO, % air saturation) and hyperoxia (150% DO) on the growth, routine aerobic metabolism (\\[\\dot {M}{{\\text{O}}_{{\\text{2rout}}}\\]) and hypoxia tolerance (O2crit) of Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) during seven developmental windows throughout incubation. Embryos exposed to hyperoxia (150% DO) did not differ from the normoxic group in growth, \\[\\dot {M}{{\\text{O}}_{{\\text{2rout}}}\\] or O2crit at any developmental window. In contrast, embryos exposed to hypoxia grew slower and had a lower \\[\\dot {M}{{\\text{O}}_{{\\text{2rout}}}\\], but had higher hypoxia tolerance (lower O2crit) than normoxic and hyperoxic counterparts. Interestingly, these differences were only apparent when the embryos were measured prior to hatching. Larvae (alevins) incubated in hypoxia following hatching grew similarly to normoxia-incubated alevins. Our results provide evidence that Atlantic salmon embryos are most sensitive to hypoxia prior to hatching, probably due to increasing (absolute) oxygen requirements concurrent with restricted oxygen diffusion through the egg. Moreover, the similarities between normoxia- and hyperoxia-incubated salmon demonstrate that embryos are not oxygen-limited under normoxic conditions.

Wild abalone (Family Haliotidae) populations have been severely affected by commercial fishing, poaching, anthropogenic pollution, environment and climate changes. These issues have stimulated an increase in aquaculture production; however production growth has been slow due to a lack of genetic knowledge and resources. We have sequenced a draft genome for the commercially important temperate Australian ‘greenlip’ abalone (Haliotis laevigata, Donovan 1808) and generated 11 tissue transcriptomes from a female adult abalone. Phylogenetic analysis of the greenlip abalone with reference to the Pacific abalone (Haliotis discus hannai) indicates that these abalone species diverged approximately 71 million years ago. This study presents an in-depth analysis into the features of reproductive dysfunction, where we provide the putative biochemical messenger components (neuropeptides) that may regulate reproduction including gonad maturation and spawning. Indeed, we isolate the egg-laying hormone neuropeptide and under trial conditions induce spawning at 80% efficiency. Altogether, we provide a solid platform for further studies aimed at stimulating advances in abalone aquaculture production. The H. laevigata genome and resources are made available to the public on the abalone ‘omics website, http://abalonedb.org.

Exposure to developmental hypoxia can have long-term impacts on the physiological performance of fish because of irreversible plasticity. Wild and captive-reared Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) can be exposed to hypoxic conditions during development and continue to experience fluctuating oxygen levels as juveniles and adults. Here, we examine whether developmental hypoxia impacts subsequent hypoxia tolerance and aerobic performance of Atlantic salmon. Individuals at 8°C were exposed to 50% (hypoxia) or 100% (normoxia) dissolved oxygen (DO) saturation (as percent of air saturation) from fertilization for ∼100 d (800 degree days) and then raised in normoxic conditions for a further 15 mo. At 18 mo after fertilization, aerobic scope was calculated in normoxia (100% DO) and acute (18 h) hypoxia (50% DO) from the difference between the minimum and maximum oxygen consumption rates (Mo2 min and Mo2 max, respectively) at 10°C. Hypoxia tolerance was determined as the DO at which loss of equilibrium (LOE) occurred in a constantly decreasing DO environment. There was no difference in Mo2 min, Mo2 max, or aerobic scope between fish raised in hypoxia or normoxia. There was some evidence that hypoxia tolerance was lower (higher DO at LOE) in hypoxia-raised fish compared with those raised in normoxia, but the magnitude of the effect was small (12.52% DO vs. 11.73% DO at LOE). Acute hypoxia significantly reduced aerobic scope by reducing Mo2 max, while Mo2 min remained unchanged. Interestingly, acute hypoxia uncovered individual-level relationships between DO at LOE and Mo2 min, Mo2 max, and aerobic scope. We discuss our findings in the context of developmental trajectories and the role of aerobic performance in hypoxia tolerance.

Hypoxia in aquatic ecosystems is becoming increasingly prevalent, potentially reducing fish performance and survival by limiting the oxygen available for aerobic activities. Hypoxia is a challenge for conserving and managing fish populations and demands a better understanding of the short- and long-term impacts of hypoxic environments on fish performance. Fish acclimate to hypoxia via a variety of short- and long-term physiological modifications in an attempt to maintain aerobic performance. In particular, hypoxia exposure during early development may result in enduring cardio-respiratory modifications that affect future hypoxia acclimation capacity, yet this possibility remains poorly investigated. We incubated Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) in normoxia (~100% dissolved oxygen [DO, as percent air saturation]), moderate hypoxia (~63% DO) or cyclical hypoxia (100–25% DO daily) from fertilization until 113 days post-fertilization prior to rearing all groups in normoxia for a further 8 months. At ~11 months of age, subsets of each group were acclimated to hypoxia (50% DO) for up to 44 days prior to haematology, aerobic metabolic rate and hypoxia tolerance measurements. Hypoxia exposure during incubation (fertilization to 113 days post-fertilization) did not affect the haematology, aerobic performance or hypoxia tolerance of juvenile salmon in later life. Juveniles acclimated to hypoxia increased maximum aerobic metabolic rate and aerobic scope by ~23 and ~52%, respectively, when measured at 50% DO but not at 100% DO. Hypoxia-incubated juveniles also increased haematocrit and haemoglobin concentration but did not affect acute hypoxia tolerance (critical oxygen level and DO at LOE). Thus, while Atlantic salmon possess a considerable capacity to physiologically acclimate to hypoxia by improving aerobic performance in low oxygen conditions, we found no evidence that this capacity is influenced by early-life hypoxia exposure.