A Scientific American Top Ten Book of 2023If 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.
