Sonoran Desert Summer [Hardcover]

John Alcock (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1990

What could seem less inviting than summer in the desert? For most people, this prospect conjures up the image of relentless heat and parched earth; for biologist John Alcock, summer in Arizona's Sonoran Desert represents an opportunity to investigate the wide variety of life that flourishes in one of the most extreme environments in North America. "Only very special plants and animals can survive and reproduce in a place that may receive as little as six inches of rain in a year," observes Alcock, "a place where the temperature may rise above one hundred degrees each day for months on end." Yet he and other biologists have discovered here startling signs of life hidden in plain view under the summer sun:
• male digger bees compete to reach virgins underground during the early summer mating season;
• the round-tailed ground squirrel goes about its business, sounding alarm calls when danger threatens its kin;
• the big-jawed beetles Dendrobias mandibularis emerge in time to feast on saguaro fruits and to use their mandibles on rival males as well;
• Harris's hawks congregate in groups, showing their affinity for polyandry and communal hunting;
• robberflies mimic the appearance of the bees and wasps on which they prey;
• and peccaries reveal the adaptation of their reproductive cycle to the desert's seasonal rains. The book's 38 chapters introduce readers to these and other desert animals and plants, tracing the course of the season through activities as vibrant as mating rituals and as subtle as the gradual deterioration of a fallen saguaro cactus. Enhanced by the line drawings of Marilyn Hoff Stewart, Sonoran Desert Summer is both an account of how modern biology operates and a celebration of the beauty and diversity that can be found in even the most unpromising places.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Daytime desert temperatures soar above 100F for months on end, and rainfall may be no more than may be no more than ? six inches a year. How do plants and animals survive in such a hostile climate? When he isn't teaching zoology at Arizona State, Alcock investigates desert life from his study site on Usery Mountain in Tonto National Forest, east of Phoenix. Although his specialty is insect reproductive behavior, he is keenly interested in other life forms and their adaptation to the environment. Alcock shows us a giant saguaro cactus, toppled by wind and slowly devoured by bacteria, insects and their predators; male empress butterflies and digger bees lying in wait for virgin females of each species to emerge from the pupal stage; Harris hawks on cooperative hunts. Among the mammals discussed are the woodrat, peccary, rock squirrel and coyote; Alcock notes that in 1987, the government spent $300,000 to destroy coyotes that had killed $54,000 worth of ok? domestic animals. This sequel to Sonoran Spring is a superb piece of natural history writing. Illustrated . First serial to Wilderness magazine.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Evolutionary biologist Alcock highlights the unique plants and animals that thrive in the Sonoran desert of Southern Arizona and Northwestern Mexcio. Using both his own observations and that of other biologists, Alcock shows some of the delights of observing nature at its most ingenious. His essays are lively and interesting--not too technical and not overly simplified. The illustrations are attractive and bring into focus details otherwise easy to miss. A good purchase in the nature writing category.
- Katherine Galloway Garstka, Intergraph Corp., Huntsville, Ala.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 187 pages
• Publisher: University of Arizona Press; 1ST edition (March 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0816511500
• ISBN-13: 978-0816511501
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,030,165 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #97 in Books > Science & Math > Nature & Ecology > Ecosystems > Deserts

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reader's review of Sonoran Desert Summer by John Alcock, March 22, 2000

By 

david e. brown (Phoenix , Arizona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sonoran Desert Summer (Paperback)

Sonoran Desert Summer is another of John Alcock's easy to read introductions to this desert's more fascinating creatures. The reader not only gets to experience the desert inhabitants' comings and goings during a typical summer in the Sonoran Desert, he or she does it in comfort! As informative as it is entertaining, this book gives the reader valuable insights into the wonderful adaptations of some of the desert's most interesting plants and animals. Written by a biologist who can also write, this book is fun to read, easy to digest, and makes every jaunt into the desert just that much more meaningful. And, the illustrations are charming as well. All in all, a good buy whether you are a tourist or a long-time desert rat.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Researched, readable and redolent with value, February 26, 2004

By 

Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sonoran Desert Summer (Hardcover)

Taking up an Alcock book and following his desert jaunts is always a pleasure. His enthusiasm for the lands others call "bleak" invites imitation. Whatever view we hold for deserts must be reconsidered and assessed for validity when we close the final page. He shows us life where we perceive an empty terrain. Brief appearances by birds, insects, coyotes, even water catch his eye and are imparted to us. While the variety of life here is as vast as the landscape, one feature is brought into view repeatedly - the giant cactus saguro. This bizarre plant becomes a lodestone for his travels because its condition signals so much about conditions. "Sonoran Desert Summer" sounds intimidating, but Alcock shows how important this season is to life.

Reflecting the brief jaunts Alcock takes into the Sonoran, the book is a collection of essays. The topics vary from feather structure for body temperature control through insect, bird and plant reproduction to government policies on coyotes. The wealth of detail neither obscures nor is muted by the desert's vastness - an aspect of which we are reminded on nearly every page. Mountains loom on the horizon and monsoon thunderheads build on their crests, but under this Hackberry bush a small butterfly is playing out a timeless strategy for finding a mate. Alcock misses none of it, and you feel pangs of regret that he's there and you're not. Still, he reminds us, human intrusion on desert solitudes are a destructive force. The Hohokum peoples, who inhabited this area for a duration four times longer than Europeans have inhabited the Western Hemisphere, likely irrigated themselves out of existence.

Alcock, true to his role as a teacher, is full of questions. How does the Digger Bee know where to excavate to obtain a mate? Why do phainopeplas, a dark-plumaged, crested bird, nest in solitude in Arizona but in groups in California? Why do "auxiliaries" occur in some bird species? Why does the zebra-tailed lizard wave its tail, an act likely to lure predators? Alcock doesn't whip out the answers to these conundrums, but guides you through a process of examining evidence, talking about other researchers' efforts and provides you with the most likely evolutionary solution. No aspect of a species lacks an evolutionary pathway, he reminds us. We must work it out from our time and place as best we can.

What is the worth of these efforts? Do they have meaning for those of us not granted the prize of desert residence? Alcock's assessment of government policies of "pest" removal can be applied anywhere. Coyotes, despised by ranchers as despoilers of herds and by suburbanites as raiders of garbage cans, find themselves targetted for eradication. Alcock shows the short-sightedness of such policies and how to replace them with more realistic ones. Heed his warning. Humanity can't afford to lose desert life - "writing its own epitaph in the sand" along with his favoured saguro. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]