Brave New World

Here’s a perfect blend of wildlife and uplift for a Friday evening. Anyone interested in biology or wildlife should find The Serengeti Rules (based on a 2016 book) fascinating, even if you’re already familiar with the idea of “keystone species”.

The film details how, from the 1960s onwards, a group of pioneering scientists established the principle that certain species bind whole ecosystems together: remove them and the system collapses, whether it’s a tidal pool missing starfish (so mussels eat everything) or an African savannah without wild dogs (so antelope overgraze and young trees can’t grow.) The insight, now mainstream, might promise “a blueprint to heal a battered planet”.