Sweet in Tooth and Claw: Stories of Generosity and Cooperation in the Natural World

The title Sweet in Tooth and Claw plays on Tennyson’s poem “In Memoriam A.H.H.,” in which he describes nature as “red in tooth and claw.” The book extends the concept of cooperation in nature from The Soil Will Save Us to the life-affirming connections among microbes, plants, fungi, insects, birds, and animals—including humans—in ecosystems around the globe. Ohlson tells stories of trees and mushrooms, beavers and cows, coffee and ants, bird poop and coral reefs. There are chapters on a wide variety of ecosystems and portraits of the people who learn from them: forests (the work of Suzanne Simard); scientists who study the interaction of bees and flowers in the Rocky Mountains; ranchers and biologists restoring wetlands in desertified northeastern Nevada; architects designing urban wetlands to protect major rivers, and more. Ohlson also recognizes older cultures that understood the necessary balance between nature's and human needs, and to which we must turn at this time of climate and environmental crisis.