Tropical Nature: Life and Death in the Rain Forests of Central and South America by Adrian Forsyth  (26)
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About the Author
A tiny rufous-tailed hummingbird hovers before the bright inflorescence of a heliconia. Undetected by the foraging bird a golden eyelash viper is curled motionless around the plant. An instant later, this subtle configuration of flora and fauna is shattered by the snake's sudden strike.
Portraits of the Rainforest explores the precarious contingencies that determine the nature of tropical life, and award-winning Adrian Forsyth approaches his subject with a "mixture of hope and trepidation." A biologist who has spent 20 years working in the rainforest, Forsyth has observed firsthand the ravaging effects of agricultural, economic and environmental policies on an ecosystem under siege.
Yet in this collection of essays, he has chosen to celebrate the rainforest rather than to lament its loss. The rainforest plays a variety of roles -- as a genetic reservoir, a pharmacy of natural products and a carbon dioxide exchange system -- but for Forsyth, its true value rests with something less functional. The rainforest, he argues, represents the pinnacle of biological diversity and evolutionary sophistication on this planet.
Forsyth draws on his own extensive experience in the rainforest to make this fascinating habitat tangible for his readers. The result is a creative, anecdotal text that in each chapter follows a thread of adaptive Darwinian logic through some part of the rainforest. The exquisite photography of Michael and Patricia Fogden helps to make Portraits of the Rainforest an unforgettable journey.
About the Author
An award-winning natural-science writer, Adrian Forsyth is a senior biodiversity scientist based at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. He is also the author of The Nature of Birds, A Natural History of Sex, Mammals of North America: Temperate and Arctic Regions and How Monkeys Make Chocolate.
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Citations
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9
books
cite this book:
- Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere With Migratory Birds by Scott Weidensaul in Back Matter
- Medicine Quest: In Search of Nature's Healing Secrets by Mark J. Plotkin in Back Matter
- Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice: An Ethnobotanist Searches for New Medicines in the Amazon Rain Forest by Mark J. Plotkin in Back Matter
- Bushmaster Fall by C. Posey in Front Matter
- Frommer's Costa Rica 2002 (Frommer's Costa Rica, 2002) by Eliot Greenspan in Back Matter