Microworlds (New Naturalist 151)

Description:

This book brings to life a whole new ecosystem populated by a bewildering array of forms living extraordinary lives. It is a remarkable eye-opener for all naturalists.

For most of the history of life on Earth all life was microscopic, and even today, most of the biodiversity is still microscopic. Until the invention of the microscope in the seventeenth century, all this diverse microworld was completely unknown. Although they have dominated Earth for aeons, microbes remain vital to the planet's health. Microworlds, the new volume in the New Naturalist Library, reveals the incredible life forms that lie beyond our everyday perception. It focuses on protists, organisms that an earlier generation of biologists called algae and protozoa, rather than the often much smaller bacteria and viruses. Concentrating on the extraordinary range visible with at most a relatively basic microscope, the book reveals the biology of these minuscule life forms. Some of them - notably Amoeba proteus and Paramecium - are widely known to anyone who has peered down a microscope in a school science class. But the microworld is an extraordinary assemblage of a vast range of different species - some of which have lifestyles that seem very familiar to the larger life forms that they live amongst, while some of their lifestyles simply seem like science fiction.

In describing this enthralling world, this book brings to life a whole new ecosystem populated by a bewildering array of forms living extraordinary lives.