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Intro -- Contents -- Of Trees and Rivers -- Deep History -- The Biography of Trees beside a River -- Introducing the Three Trees and Their Rivers -- The Need for Morticulture -- The First Tree: Headwaters -- The Neighborhood, Writ Large -- Germination and Seedling -- Sapling -- Maturity -- Life in the Forest -- Senescence and Death -- Life after Death I: Snag -- Life after Death II: Logjam -- Life after Death III: Coarse Woody Debris -- The Second Tree: Lowlands -- A Western Redcedar in the Queets River Valley of Washington -- Tracks of a River in the Forest -- Germination and Seedling -- Sapling -- Maturity -- Death -- Life after Death I: Episodic Loops between the Channel and Floodplain -- Life after Death II: The Beach -- The Third Tree: Traveler -- A Balsam Poplar along the Kechika River of Canada -- Germination and Seedling -- Sapling -- Maturity -- Death -- Life after Death I: The Long River Journey -- Life after Death II: The Arctic Ocean -- Wood That Sinks in the Sea -- Damming the Wood Falls -- Campfire -- Conclusion: In Praise of Dead Wood -- References -- Scientific Names -- Index.

This important and accessible book surveys the history and present condition of river systems across the United States, showing how human activities have impoverished our rivers and impaired the connections between river worlds and other ecosystems.Ellen Wohl begins by introducing the basic physical, chemical, and biological processes operating in rivers. She then addresses changes in rivers resulting from settlement and expansion, describes the growth of federal involvement in managing rivers, and examines the recent efforts to rehabilitate and conserve river ecosystems. In each chapter she focuses on a specific regional case study and describes what happens to a particular river organism-a bird, North America's largest salamander, the paddlefish, and the American alligator-when people interfere with natural processes

Island of Grass tells the story of the Cathy Fromme Prairie Natural Area, a 240-acre preserve surrounded by housing developments in Fort Collins, Colorado. This small grassland is a remnant of the once-vast prairies of the West that early European explorers and settlers described as seas of grass. Agricultural land use and urban expansion during the past two centuries have fragmented and altered these prairies. All that remains today are small islands