Trees, Truffles, and Beasts: How Forests Function [Hardcover]

Mr. Chris Maser (Author), Dr. Andrew Claridge (Author), Prof. James Trappe (Author), Charles Krebs (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2008

In today's world of specialization, people are attempting to protect the Earth's fragile state by swapping limousines for hybrids and pesticide-laced foods for organic produce. At other times, environmental awareness is translated into public relations gimmicks or trendy commodities. Moreover, simplistic policies, like single-species protection or planting ten trees for every tree cut down, are touted as bureaucratic or industrial panaceas.

Because today's decisions are tomorrow's consequences, every small effort makes a difference, but a broader understanding of our environmental problems is necessary to the development of sustainable ecosystem policies. In Trees, Truffles, and Beasts, Chris Maser, Andrew W. Claridge, and James M. Trappe make a compelling case that we must first understand the complexity and interdependency of species and habitats from the microscopic level to the gigantic. Comparing forests in the Pacific Northwestern United States and Southeastern mainland of Australia, the authors show how easily observable speciesùtrees and mammalsùare part of a complicated infrastructure that includes fungi, lichens, and organisms invisible to the naked eye, such as microbes.

Eminently readable, this important book shows that forests are far more complicated than most of us might think, which means simplistic policies will not save them. Understanding the biophysical intricacies of our life-support systems just might.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Accurate and authentic, Trees, Truffles, and Beasts makes a major contribution to the field of natural resource management. This is a clear and compelling argument that there''s much more to forests than meets the eye.

(Jim Furnish Deputy Chief (ret.), USDA Forest Service )

This book is an excellent introduction to the world of mycorrhizal fungi in forests and their importance in food webs as highlighted by truffles. This book should encourage readers to investigate further the intricate and essential interactions occurring in forests, which make them work.

(John Dighton professor and director of Rutgers University Pinelands Field Station )

About the Author

Chris Maser is a writer, environmental consultant, and master's level zoologist who has written over twenty books, including Mammals of the Pacific Northwest and Forest Primeval: The Natural History of an Ancient Forest.

Andrew W. Claridge is a research scientist with the Department of Environment and Conservation in New South Wales, Australia. He has authored or co-authored over fifty publications about the interactions among trees, truffles, and animals and undertaken research at postgraduate and postdoctoral levels in both Australia and the United States of America.

James M. Trappe is a professor of forest science specializing in forest fungi at Oregon State University, Corvallis, and the author of almost four hundred journal articles and book chapters. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press (February 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813542251
• ISBN-13: 978-0813542256
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,370,032 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I spent over 25 years as a research scientist in natural history and ecology in forest, shrub steppe, subarctic, desert, coastal, and agricultural settings. Trained primarily as a vertebrate zoologist, I was a research mammalogist in Nubia, Egypt, (1963-1964) with the Yale University Peabody Museum Prehistoric Expedition and a research mammalogist in Nepal (1966-1967), where I participated in a study of tick-borne diseases for the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit #3 based in Cairo, Egypt. I conducted a three-year (1970-1973) ecological survey of the Oregon Coast for the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington. I was a research ecologist with the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management for thirteen years (1974-1987)--the last eight studying old-growth forests in western Oregon--and a landscape ecologist with the Environmental Protection Agency for one year (1990-1991).

Today I am an independent author as well as an international lecturer, facilitator, and consultant in resolving environmental conflicts, vision statements, sustainable community development, as well as forest ecology and sustainable forestry practices.

I have written over 285 publications, including 34 books I have either written or coauthored in the last 20 years. My books are in libraries in 74 countries, including the United States and Canada.

I have lived, worked, consulted, and/or Lectured in: Austria * Canada * Chile * Egypt * France * Germany * Japan * Malaysia * Mexico * Nepal * Slovakia * Switzerland * and various settings in the United States.

If you want to know more or contact me, you can visit my website at "chrismaser.com"

If you want to watch a presentation I gave at Missouri State University, go to my website and click on "essays," scroll down to "Environmental" on the left side, and then click on "The Law of Cosmic Unification," which is the first essay under this topic. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, and you will see the link.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A very interesting Forest Cycle, March 29, 2010

By 

Brad Allen "Middle Fork Giants" (Redmond, WA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trees, Truffles, and Beasts: How Forests Function (Paperback)

"Dung beetles and other creatures that feed on animal feces may initially arouse disgust in humans....They dig a burrow, tumble the dung ball into it, and then bury themselves with the ball. There they feed on it and, after mating, the female lays eggs in it. The larvae that hatch are embedded in their nutritious and, to them, tasty food supply. When they mature to adults, they dig themselves out of the ground and repeat the cycle of dung tumbling, burrowing, banqueting, and reproducing." This quote, from pp 43-44 in Trees, Truffles, and Beasts is an example of what is truly great about this book. A deep, scientific look at a very few of the amazing cycles which make forests work. If you think trees grow in dirt with water from rain and energy from the sun, you may likely be shocked, like I was, with the critical role of mycorrhizal fungus in the synergy which makes big trees become old-growth giants.

The authors choose to explain a few cycles in great detail while leaving us with just a hint of the thousands, or even millions, of such cycles involved. The fungus wraps around tree roots and provides water far beyond the root balls of the evergreen. Douglas firs would be stunted average trees, if it were not for their subterranean fungus friends. But the fungus, buried as they are, could never reproduce. So they wrap their spores around a tasty and smelly truffle, which certain animals dig up, consume, and then disperse the spores either by wind or by scat. It's elegant, unseen, and under appreciated by most forest lovers let alone the populace of voters who determine our forests' fate.

The story of the mycorrhizal fungi, their mycophagist friends, and the giant trees is beautifully written but is only about 30% of the book. It is wrapped in classic textbook writing and some misplaced philosophy. The textbook approach is obvious in the sections about trees and forest animals. These sections are good references but not great reads. The authors choose to look at both the forests of the Pacific Northwest and Australia. I was not convinced as much of the commonality as I think they hoped.

The philosophy seems out of place in this book. The authors have a very strong absolute evolution message which may be scientifically palatable but to me was out of place in this story. Their environmental message is appropriate but over-blown. An excellent example of this out-of-place philosophy is at the start of chapter 6 on forest fires and their effect on the landscape. "When considering system-altering disturbances, we must recognize what sets us apart form our fellow creatures. It is not some higher sense of spirituality or some nobler sense of purpose, but rather that we deem ourselves wise in our own eyes. Therein lies the fallacy..." But wait, I want to know about truffles and voles!!

This is a good book to fill out your knowledge of old growth forests. It shouldn't be the one book you read on old growth forests nor the first. It's probably best for people who have dug their hands into the forest loam to see the space within the organics and wondered about the wispy white streaks that flow through the dark dirt to wrap around roots. Ah! My new friend mycorrhizal fungus. I have also learned that I, like most Pacific Northwest rodents, am a casual or opportunistic mycophagist. If that intrigues you, then read this book.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars missing pages, February 2, 2011

By 

Time Alloy "Time Alloy" (Salem, Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trees, Truffles, and Beasts: How Forests Function (Paperback)

Note that my book has the following pages blank: 16-17, 20-21, 24-25, 28-29, 32-33, 36-37. You may want to check your book before purchasing.