A Scientific American Top Ten Book of 2023 If forests are the lungs of the planet then
animals migrating across oceans streams and mountains-eating pooping and dying along the
way-are its heart and arteries pumping nitrogen and phosphorus from deep-sea gorges up to
mountain peaks from the Arctic to the Caribbean. Without this conveyor belt of crucial
life-sustaining nutrients the world would look very different. The dynamics that shape our
physical world-atmospheric chemistry geothermal forces plate tectonics and erosion through
wind and rain-have been explored for decades. But the effects on local ecosystems of less
glamorous forces-rotting carcasses and deposited feces-as well as their impact on the global
climate cycle have been largely overlooked. The simple truth is that pooping and peeing are
daily rituals for almost all animals the ellipses of ecology that flow through life. We eat
we poop and we die. From the volcanoes of Iceland to the tropical waters of Hawaii the great
plains of the American heartland and beyond Eat Poop Die takes readers on an exhilarating
and enlightening global adventure revealing the remarkable ways in which the most basic
biological activities of animals make and remake the world-and how a deeper understanding of
these cycles provides us with opportunities to undo the environmental damage humanity has
wrought on the planet we call home.
