Ecological Influence Quotes

Corn is the hero of its own story, and though we humans played a crucial supporting role in its rise to world domination, it would be wrong to suggest we have been calling the shots, or acting always in our own best interests. Indeed, there is every reason to believe that corn has succeeded in domesticating us.

How much deeper would the ocean be if sponges didn’t live there?

Many historical events, hitherto explained solely in terms of human enterprise, were actually biotic interactions between people and land.

We don't exactly have the opposite interests to chimpanzees. However, things are not looking up for the chimpanzees, because we control their environment. Our interests are not perfectly aligned with theirs, and it turns out it's not easy to get interests aligned.

Life does more than adapt to the Earth. It changes the Earth to its own purposes.

We are the children of our landscape; it dictates behavior and even thought in the measure to which we are responsive to it.

Every living thing is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself.

The plow is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man's inventions; but long before he existed the land was in fact regularly plowed, and still continues to be thus plowed by earthworms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures.