A book about octopuses led to a book about nearly everything. As a result, I needed a lot of help with this one and have many people to thank. High on the list must be Tim Lenton, who, undeterred by my skepticism about Gaia, helped extensively and generously as I slowly made my way into Earth science. In the same area, I am grateful to Jochen Brocks, Andrew Knoll, Minik Rosing, and Ford Doolittle.
Katherine Preston helped with forests and Kim Sterelny with humans. For contributions to the text and ideas I am also grateful to Andy Barron, Rob Bezimienny, Laurent Bopp, Gerald Borgia, Nicholas Butterfield, Tim Carey, Mark Collard, Scott Denning, Ute Eickelkamp, Mark Fisher, Cliff Frith, Tom Froese, Michael Gazzaniga, Steven Gross, Lori Gruen, Robert Hazen, Celia Heyes, Peter Hiscock, Catherine Hobaiter, Sarah Holland-Batt, Gaspar Jekely, Fred Keijzer, Matt Lawrence, Ron Milo, Jadran Mimeca, Olivier Morin, Rob Phillips, Lesley Rogers, David Scheel, Jeff Sebo, Nick Shea, Ana Lucía Valencia, Giorgio Vallortigara, Roman Werpachowski, Caroline West, and Mark Westoby. Dan Dennett died, after a stupendous career, while this book was in press. His thinking influenced all the books in this series, especially Metazoa.
Ena Alvarado did a fact-check of several chapters and, in addition to catching errors, made a number of other deft suggestions. Especially as I did not follow Ena’s advice in every case, any remaining factual problems should not be associated with her work. I am grateful to Myles Archibald at William Collins both for his continual support and for significant improvements to the text.
The book has been enriched by the illustrative prowess of Rebecca Gelernter (the drawings here, here, here, and here), Kylie Brown (tree diagrams here, here, here, and here), and Linda Lunnon (chimeric faces here). I thank Annie Gottlieb, once again, for much more than a copyedit.
My Africa trip was done with Ged and Teresa Caddick’s Terra Incognita Ecotours, and the Sulawesi and Solomon Islands trips with Dive Center Manly. Thanks to everyone at Little Governors’ Camp (Kenya), Sabyinyo Lodge (Rwanda), and the Nelson Bay dive shops Let’s Go Adventures and Feet First Dive.
I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of places in Australia that figure in the book: the Gandangara people of the Blue Mountains; the Worimi people of the Port Stephens area; the Gumbaynggirr people of the Dorrigo area; and the Malgana, Nhanda, and Yinggarda people of Shark Bay. I acknowledge and thank the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community for their continuing care of Booderee National Park.
My wife, Jane, was very much present in the earlier books in the series but her role is more visible in this one, and she contributed many crucial images and insights. These include the Pollock quote in chapter 8 and chapter 7’s reflection on nonhuman animals’ capacities to adjust to too much. (“Hang on, those are the two best bits of the book.” Perhaps they are.)
Sarah Chalfant and her colleagues at the Wylie Agency were superlative once again. I am reminded often of Rebecca Nagel’s crucial comment about the organization of the book’s themes. Alex Star, my editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux, was deeply involved in the development of some central ideas of Living on Earth as well as its edits, and Ian Van Wye has skillfully steered the book’s production. All through this project I have continually felt the presence of a wonderful team of collaborators alongside me.