Product Description

One hundred and fifty years ago, Charles Darwin asked how a rain forest could contain so many species: What explains the riot? The same question occupies the scientists who toil on Panamas Barro Colorado Island today. Tropical and steamy, these six square miles comprise the best-studied rain forest in the world, a locus of scientific activity since 1923. In THE TAPIR'S MORNING BATH, Elizabeth Royte weaves together her own adventures on Barro Colorado with tales of researchers struggling to parse the intricate workings of the rain forest, the most complicated natural system on the planet. Through the lens of the field station, she also traces the history of modern biology from its earliest days of collection and classification through the decline of the naturalist to the days of intense niche specialization and rigorous scientific quantification. As Royte counts seeds and sorts insects, collects monkey dung and radiotracks bats, she begins to wonder: what is the point of such arcane studies? The world over, rain forests are rapidly disappearing and species are going extinct. While humanizing the scientists in the field, she explores the tension between their research and the reality of a world that may not have time for the answers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1673176 in Books
• Published on: 2001-08-29
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 1.17 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Royte, a contributing writer for Outside magazine who has also published in National Geographic, Harper's and Rolling Stone, spent a year with ecologists on Panama's Barro Colorado Island, after an earlier visit (for an article on famed biologist E.O. Wilson) sparked her curiosity about the research being conducted there. The result is this excellent book, a superb introduction to tropical ecology and theoretical biology, as well as original and thoroughly engaging travel writing. By hiring herself out as a research assistant at large, Royte gains intimacy with the professors and students at the island's research station and gradually gains acceptance into their world. She tracks a troop of spider monkeys with a woman whose research on their reproductive cycles holds the promise of being "quietly groundbreaking," spends nights in the tree canopy observing bats that build tents from leaves, and crouches on the forest floor to catalogue the social behavior of leaf-cutter ants. With humor, Royte describes the social hierarchies of the researchers and tourists who visit the island, in terms not dissimilar to those of the ecological studies the scientists themselves conduct. She wrestles with questions about the value of fieldwork amid mounting concerns worldwide about biodiversity and species extinction. This book illustrates how small breakthroughs do in fact occur, making the "mysterious and dim" tropical forest "just a tiny bit brighter." (Sept. 26) Forecast: While this title will be a must-read for professionals and armchair naturalists alike, Royte's winning combination of detail, expertise and engaging humor (along with an author tour) should draw in literate lay readers beyond the adventure set.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
While researching this book, Royte spent a year living and working intermittently with the ardent rainforest researchers on Barrow Colorado Island in the Panama Canal. A contributing writer to Outside magazine, Royte deftly describes these researchers and their work as well as the historical research done on the island and the history of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, which serves as a base camp for researchers on the island. Through stories about spider monkeys, tent-making bats, leaf-cutting ants, spiny rats, innumerable bugs, and even the movement of water in the ecosystem, Royte offers an excellent overview of the need for tropical research. She also discusses the decline of the generalist in the field of biology. Books like Marty Crump's In Search of the Golden Frog (LJ 5/15/00) and Margaret Lowman's Life in the Treetops (LJ 5/15/99) focus on the life-work of one particular scientist (Lowman includes a chapter on her own work on Barrow Colorado), while Royte combines the studies of many researchers, resulting in an introduction to the ecosystem. An excellent book for all libraries. Margaret Henderson, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Lib. and Archives, NY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Kirkus Reviews
"Intriguing . . . a finely drawn chronicle of fieldwork, with an appealing moral edge."