Nature's Microworlds - Episode Guide

The Galapagos is home to a myriad of bizarre and unique creatures endemic to these islands, but how did they get here and what is the key that allows them to thrive?

A look at one of the most famous habitats on the planet, the Serengeti in east Africa, a vast grassland that is home to some of the greatest concentrations of herbivores on the continent. But what is the key to this exceptional grassland that allows such density and diversity?

Steve Backshall lifts the lid on an incredible world of intricate relationships and unexpected hardship in the Amazon rainforest, explores the way that the jungle's inhabitants interact, and reveals a hidden secret that might just be what keeps the whole place alive.

Steve Backshall looks at the unique geography of California's Monterey Bay, its kelp forest bursting with life from microscopic plankton to visiting ocean giants.

Steve Backshall reveals the secret to the existence of the Okavango, the world's largest inland delta and home to one of Africa's greatest congregations of wildlife.

In the northerly region of Svalbard, Steve Backshall unravels the secrets that lie covered in ice for most of each year in the home of the world's largest land predator.

Steve Backshall reveals why Canada's coastal forest is home to huge trees and some of the greatest aggregations of top predators in North America.

Steve Backshall visits Australia's Great Barrier Reef to discover the conditions that let a tiny coral building block create Earth's largest living structure.

Steve Backshall visits the Namib in Africa, where animals use clever tactics to combat the heat. He reveals the unique secret that allows life to survive here at all.

In Yellowstone National Park, where wolves, bears, coyotes, bison and elk roam vast grasslands, wetlands and forests, Steve Backshall looks for the answer to a puzzle.

Steve Backshall plumbs the ocean depths to find an array of beautiful and bizarre creatures, from 40m-long jellyfish to grotesque angler fish and vampire squid.

Steve Backshall reveals huge kangaroos, the world's most venomous snake and a burrowing toad living among the throng of animals in the harsh environment.

Steve Backshall shows how the two contrasting landscapes of open moor and Caledonian forest are both crucially important to the Highlands' wild inhabitants.

Steve Backshall explores the connections and relationship that we have with insects and other arthropods. In Kenya, huge armies of driver ants give houses a five-star clean-up, and in China, we discover how silkworm caterpillars have shaped our culture and distribution. While locusts devastate crops in Africa, bees and beetles across the world provide a key link in our food chains. Many of us perceive these animals merely as creepy crawlies and nothing more than a nuisance, but as Steve reveals, we couldn't live without them.

Steve Backshall reveals the incredible influence that insects and their close relatives have on Earth's many ecosystems. In the grasslands of South America, the landscape has been created almost solely by one team of insects - grass-cutter ants. Across the world's oceans one tiny creature plays such a key role that, without it, the largest animal on our planet, the blue whale, could not exist. And in East Africa the savannah would quickly be swamped in dung were it not for the activities of a certain beetle. Yet the greatest influence of all comes from a group of insects that have ultimately changed the colour and diversity of our planet.

Steve Backshall examines why insects are so abundant and successful. In Yellowstone, he reveals how teamwork allows a colony of bees to scare off a bear.