From mid-summer Sundays humming with lawn mowers to gray squirrels foraging in planters and flocks of pigeons rustling their feathers near park benches, Nature All Around Us evokes familiar, everyday examples in order to explore ecology and introduce readers to its most essential concepts. In twenty-five short chapters organized by scale, from the home to the neighborhood to the city at large, the book offers an approachable and entertaining education in ecology that is sure to inspire appreciation--and hopefully stewardship—of our shared environment. Various ecological concepts that any urban dweller might encounter are accessibly explained, from understanding why a squirrel might act aggressively toward its neighbor to how nutrients and energy contained within a discarded apple core are recycled back into the food chain.

Taken as a whole, Nature All Around Us is an unprecedented field guide to the ecology of the urban environment that invites us to look at our towns, cities, and even our backyards through the eyes of an ecologist. 

Beatrix Beisner, Christian Messier, and Luc Alain Giraldeau are all professors in the Department of Biology at the University of Quebec at Montreal.

They are available for interviews. Please contact Carrie Olivia Adams at 773-702-4216 or cadams@press.uchicago.edu for more information.