Hypersea: Life on Land

This book shows how complex lifeforms came onto the land from the sea. Hypersea does not include bacteria already living on the land, but is defined by the authors as the sum total of plant, animal, protoctistan and fungal terrestrial-based life. The challenges of living on land are discussed in detail - the need to retain water within, the difficulty extracting crucial nutrients, locomotion out of the water, etc. The importance of the fungi in extracting and delivering nutrients to plants, in return for carbohydrates produced by the plants, is considered, and a picture of the interconnectedness of terrestrial lifeforms emerges.

Ok, for those not up on their biology or the Gaia hypothesis, it might be difficult to get through, but Hypersea is well written and fascinating for those interested in knowing how life has and will continue to evolve in more complex ways. An extremely important addition to the Gaia hypothesis. You will never see the world in the same way again.The Hypersea and Gaia hypotheses are the only two clearly defined scientific theories that have been put forth to give us some answers to questions not asked by most of biology.