Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2022 -

Owen-Smith (emer., Univ. of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg) offers a cross-disciplinary textbook that provides a natural historian's overview of the ecology of Africa, with a gradually sharpening focus on the primates that originated there and evolved into modern humans. Part 1 focuses on the physical features of Africa, including the famous Rift Valley and other geological formations, the distribution of water resources, climate seasonality, soil fertility, and how these physical features became the fundamental environment for the organic evolution that took place on the continent. Part 2 focuses on plant ecology, including the structure of savanna and other African habitats, community ecology, fire ecology, and paleoecology. Part 3 then turns to animal life and its history on the continent given the context of the inorganic and organic substrate in which it evolved. Discussion ranges from niche dimensions to alternative ecological strategies, also exploring the evolution of large mammal life in Africa and, in some cases, extinctions. Part 4 concludes the volume by focusing on the evolution of primates in Africa, including humans. Owen-Smith provides a refreshing look at a continent in its entirety and all the life it has generated, facilitating a perspective quite different from the usual focus on only one particular aspect of that life.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers.