A friend of mine has recently got her license as a naturalistic guide, which I believe is a beautiful job because it enhances the connection between people and nature. Such guides usually receive fairly comprehensive training in zoology, botany, geology, and history of the landscape where they are going to work, which is what they mainly need to introduce the flora and fauna during a hike. It may vary from course to course, and I am based on prejudices rather than data, but I suspect that guides’ mentors rarely put all those subjects together to give a general idea about how ecosystems work and why: which is ecology.
My friend is a perfectionist, so she decided to integrate ecological knowledge by herself, and she asked me if I have any book to recommend, which is the topic of this post. Most of the ecologists I know read an enormous number of books, and in fact, new interesting titles are published every year and there is a lot that is worth to read. Here I will only talk about science communication books that I believe are an excellent read for people who haven’t studied ecology before. My suggestions are based on my taste, of course.
Messages from islands - a global biodiversity tour by the late Ilka Hanski is one of the most fascinating books on ecology I ever read. The author touches the most important topics in ecology for what concerns biodiversity (what is it, how is it generated, how and why it changes, and why is it important). All six chapters are based on a different island (islands are natural laboratories for ecologists) and on what we learned from studying them. The book is so well written that you won’t put it down until you finished it. It is a must-read for all ecologists, although maybe there is not a lot of material to be used by a guide during a hike (but the duty of being creative is on the guide!).
Why ecology matters by Charles Krebs is one of the books I reviewed for Cons Bio and one of the reasons I like it is that the author explains ecological topics in a way that can be digested by everybody who is just interested in ecology. Also, the use of a summary (key points) at the beginning of each chapter makes absorbing the new information easier, and I can easily imagine the book being used by a naturalistic guide. The chapters of the book cover topics such as the geographical distribution of species, populations, the concept of optimal conditions for a species, overexploiting, recovering after a disturbance, ecological communities, keystone species, ecosystems as the product of evolution, nutrient cycles, climate change, and extinction. The author could have selected other topics or he could have written a huge manual, as the number of ecological topics is endless, but I think he did a good selection and the pocket size of the book makes it a good compromise.
The diversity of life by Ed Wilson - a champion of conservation biology - is a classic and it does not matter that it was first published in 1992. Maybe it’s not the most useful book for a naturalistic guide, but it’s really a pleasant read with a seamless narrative. You can only be enriched by reading it. The book is about biodiversity and why it is important. You will find ecological and utilitarian reasons why we should preserve it, but also ethical arguments, which is another reason to praise the author.
The Serengeti rules by Sean Carroll is another title I reviewed for Cons Bio (do you see how many interesting books one can get for free?!). Carroll is a molecular biologist but the ecological chapters are well explained, also thanks to the simple style used (key points and few but good examples). The book is built on the concept of regulation. Regulation of macro-systems and micro-systems alike. Each chapter is based on a scientist and parallelisms between cells, human biology, and ecosystems. Maybe it’s not the best read for someone who wants to learn more only about ecology, but it is such a nice read that I can't avoid to recommend it. I can easily imagine a naturalistic guide making parallelisms between micro- and macro-worlds while guiding an excursion (you want to be a charming guide!).
The last book I recommend is The song of the dodo by David Quammen. I haven’t finished yet (I am still on page 300, ca. half of the book), but this is probably the best account of the stories behind Darwin, Wallace, and the theory of evolution; even better than textbooks from which I studied. It was published in 1997, but those things haven’t changed, so it can be warmheartedly recommended.
If you are a naturalistic guide thank you for reading this post, and I hope my suggestions will be helpful! I am sure that a person who is so diligent to explore ecology by herself can only become a wonderful guide.
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