| Foreword | vii |
| 1 Conditions for life | 1 |
| What is life? | 1 |
| The special properties of organic life | 4 |
| The elements of life: supporting players | 6 |
| The special qualities of planet Earth | 7 |
| The origin of life on Earth | 10 |
| The rise of life, and the idea of the cell | 16 |
| 2 The waters of the world | 21 |
| The magical properties of water | 21 |
| The movements of water | 23 |
| Water- the sculptor of landscape | 25 |
| Water- the creator of climate and weather | 27 |
| Why life is `patchy' | 28 |
| Cleaning up the world's waterways | 35 |
| A proper attitude to water | 38 |
| 3 The oceans | 41 |
| The ocean zones | 41 |
| Topography | 41 |
| Light | 43 |
| Heat | 44 |
| Mixing of the oceans | 45 |
| Life in the oceans | 46 |
| The plankton | 47 |
| The pelagic zone | 49 |
| The bottom dwellers | 52 |
| The depths | 52 |
| Cycles and seasons in the sea | 53 |
| Hotspots: the intertidal zone | 54 |
| Hotspots: the coral reef | 55 |
| Management of the sea | 57 |
| 4 The land | 61 |
| Tropical rain forest | 62 |
| Savannah | 64 |
| Desert and desert scrub | 66 |
| Temperate grassland | 67 |
| Temperate and boreal forests | 69 |
| Tundra | 70 |
| Islands | 72 |
| Montane | 76 |
| Artificial ecosystems | 77 |
| 5 Energy and the atmosphere | 81 |
| The first participant: energy from space | 81 |
| How the Sun's radiations affect living things | 82 |
| The second participant: the atmosphere | 84 |
| Pollution of the atmosphere: an upset of balance | 90 |
| Photosynthesis | 93 |
| Our debt to the Sun | 97 |
| 6 Food webs | 101 |
| Optimum foraging strategy | 103 |
| Food chains, food webs, and cycles | 110 |
| Energy and trophic levels | 114 |
| Limiting factors | 116 |
| Subsidies | 116 |
| Agriculture and the rise of human beings | 118 |
| 7 Populations and communities | 121 |
| The nature of populations | 121 |
| The size of populations: balance and minimum numbers | 126 |
| Population: patterns and strategies | 127 |
| The balance of nature | 129 |
| Parasites | 130 |
| Extinction | 134 |
| The vulnerability of living things | 134 |
| Adaptation | 136 |
| Interactions: communities | 138 |
| Change and succession | 142 |
| 8 The impact of people | 147 |
| Human population | 147 |
| How many? | 149 |
| Reducing the impact of agriculture | 151 |
| National parks | 153 |
| Captive breeding and reintroduction | 155 |
| Conservation by exploitation | 156 |
| Wildlife in cities | 161 |
| What is needed | 162 |
| Glossary | 164 |
| Picture credits | 167 |
| Index | 168 |