Seasons of Life

The biological rhythms that enable living things to thrive and survive

Leon Kreitzman, Russell Foster

• Publisher: Profile Books
• Year: 2010
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781847652799
• Subtopic: Science General
• Index: Biological Sciences

The natural world is full of rhythms. How do birds know when to return to their nesting grounds? What effect do the seasons have on our wellbeing, and how does the season in which we are born affect our subsequent life chances? How did humans get the idea that there were seasons 50,000 years ago? Seasons of Life explains why the seasons occur, the impact of seasonal change and how organisms have evolved to anticipate these changes. For although we mask the effects of seasonal changes by warming our homes, lighting our nights, preserving foods and storing water, we cannot hide from them.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The generation of the seasons
• 2 Adapting to seasonal change
• 3 Anticipating seasonal change in plants
• 4 Seasonal reproduction in mammals and birds
• 5 Staying put in the cold: hibernation and diapause
• 6 Timing migration
• 7 Seasons and human evolution
• 8 Timing reproduction in humans
• 9 Birth month effects
• 10 Disease and seasonal timing
• 11 Seasonal affective disorder
• 12 The seasonality of dying
• 13 We are all phenology freaks now
• Glossary of common terms
• Appendix I
• References
• Index