This volume is based to a large extent on the understanding of biosemiotic literary criticism as a semiotic-model-making enterprise.  For Jurij Lotman and Thomas A. Sebeok, “nature writing is essentially a model of the relationship between humans and nature� (Timo Maran); biosemiotic literary criticism, itself a form of nature writing and thus itself an ecological-niche-making enterprise, will be considered to be a model of modeling, a model of nature naturing.  Modes and models of analysis drawn from Thomas A. Sebeok and Marcel Danesi Forms of Meaning: Modeling Systems Theory and Semiotic Analysis as well as from Timo Maran work on “modeling the environment in literature,� Edwina Taborsky writing on Peircean semiosis, and, of course, Jesper Hoffmeyer formative work in biosemiotics are among the most important organizing elements for this volume.