This week I'm talking with Chris Thomas, professor of conservation biology at the University of York in the UK and author of the recent book 'Inheritors of the Earth, How Nature is Thriving in an Age of Extinction'. His numerous articles and academic works make him one of the world's most influential ecologists, and his research has been covered on the front pages of the Guardian and Washington Post. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 2012, received Marsh Awards for Climate Change Research in 2011 and for Conservation Biology in 2004, and was awarded the prestigious British Ecological Society President's Medal in 2001.