Thanks to Life

Why and how do we depend on nature to live?

Thanks to microbes for nourishing and defending us, and to fungi for inventing remedies to kill them; thanks to insects for feeding birds, controlling vegetation, and pollinating flowers, and to bats for eating those insects. Even if we don’t realize it, we eat, drink, breathe, and enjoy a suitable temperature
because other living beings make it possible. A vast system of checks and balances, perfectly integrated over millions of years of evolution, maintains the biosphere in a dynamic equilibrium ideal for the species that inhabit it, including our own.

Through these pages, the renowned biologist Miguel Delibes celebrates the myriad contributions of nature and the diversity that surrounds us. He inherited both his name and a deep concern for global environmental issues from his father, the novelist who became one of Spain's most significant literary figures. Thanks to Life is born out of a debt Miguel felt toward
his father, a dialogue that remained unfinished. Above all, this book, filled with science, history, culture, and personal anecdotes, serves as a powerful reminder that the biodiversity crisis is, fundamentally, a crisis of humanity.

In ten chapters, Delibes sheds light on forms of life that we often overlook or undervalue, yet are crucial to our survival: from weeds, earthworms, fungi, vultures, and microbes, to beetles, phytoplankton, bats, oysters, clams, and even foxes.