Togetherness: Symbiosis and the Hidden Story of Life’s Greatest Collaborations

by Rowan Hooper

From evolution to capitalism, ‘survival of the fittest’ has shaped our view of the world. But we got it wrong – and our mistake has brought us to the brink.

For the history of life on Earth is much more than a story of competition. The natural world has been forged and sustained by small miracles of co-operation between animals and plants, insects and fungi, fish and bacteria – these partnerships are ubiquitous, lifelong and are an essential guide for a better future.

In Togetherness, Rowan Hooper reveals the intimate connectedness of nature through these remarkable stories of symbiosis. From the female wasp venturing deep inside a fig and the intricate relationship between corals and the algae that sustain them to the symbiotic gut microbes that influence our moods, he explores how co-operation is fundamental to life itself and to protecting our shared future.

Togetherness will change the way you see the world, our place in it – and our obligation to its hidden wonders.

Kindle Edition

Expected publication June 4, 2026

About the author

Rowan Hooper is Managing Editor of New Scientist magazine, where he has spent more than ten years writing about all aspects of science.

He has a PhD in evolutionary biology, and worked as a biologist in Japan for five years, before joining the Japan Times newspaper in Tokyo, and later taking up a fellowship at Trinity College Dublin.

Two collections of his long-running column for the paper have been published in Japan, and his work has also appeared in The Economist, Guardian, Wired and the Washington Post.

He lives in London with his partner and two daughters.