THE CALL OF THE HONEYGUIDE

Humans and nature, working together.

Mutualisms are beneficial relationships between two or more species. Humans depend on countless numbers of these—and discover more of them—every day, says Dunn, author of several books. Once, we did not “see” mutualisms, perhaps guided too much by competitive aspects of Darwinism. But Darwin saw cooperation, or “mutualistic symbioses,” in evolution, too. And so did other scientists after researcher Lynn Margulis, in the 1960s, discovered that the mitochondria in all our cells were born when one single-celled bacterium “ate” another billions of years ago and began using it as its energy source: the first complex life. We now know that we are a compilation of endless life forms that live in and around us, that sustain us as we sustain them. Margulis “reimagine[d] symbiotic partnerships as the default story of life.” This book is teeming with such partnerships. One of the most compelling: the partnership between ancient trees and savanna-hopping ancient humans. The trees used the humans to spread their seeds (“fruits evolved to attract animals to eat them”) even as humans used the fruit to survive. (Trees are, in fact, among “nature’s chefs,” the author has unearthed in his research.) Then there is human-beaver mutualism. Near the author’s home in North Carolina, engineers looking to revive a stream removed concrete over it. But because they also straightened it, the waters couldn’t slow, as they do when bending, to pool and form ecosystems. For 17 years the author saw little wildlife. Then two beavers—as they have for 12 million years—built a lodge for themselves, damming and pooling the stream. Soon, life was everywhere: fish, birds, mammals, turtles. A once-stagnant urban trickle had become a “new and righteous, riotous place.”

A gorgeous, authoritative, and philosophical directive to stop destroying the mutualisms of life.