Peter Thomas is senior lecturer in botanical and environmental science at Keele University, UK with 30 years of experience in ecological aspects of trees and forest ecology in the UK, North and Central America, Europe, Africa, Russia and Australasia. He has written two other books for Cambridge University Press: Ecology of Woodlands and Forests (with John Packham, 2007) and Fire in the Forest (with Robert S. McAlpine, 2010).