Tropical Nature: Life & Death in the Rain Forests of Central & South America

Customer Reviews:

Insightful overview of tropical ecology.......2007-03-09

I found Tropical Nature to be an interesting and easy read. Organized neatly into 17 chapters and an appendix, each covers a specific a specific species of ecological concept. I found chapter 6, "Listen to the flowers" the most interesting, detailing the different mechanisms plants employ in order to have evolutionary advantages as well as trick other species.

(I read this as a precursor to a may term course at my college where I shall be going to the rain forests of Ecuador)

great adventure!.......2007-01-18

I began reading this book for a class involving tropical studies and travel and I wasn't sure what to expect. This is a great book. Easy read. The book takes a broad yet, also in depth exploration of different *interesting* topics in tropical ecology. Although it is definitely not a scientific text, this book takes you for a wondrous adventure into the tropics.

Tropical Nature.......2006-11-13

This book was great. It is written a bit technically, so it would help to have a science backgroung to fully enjoy it. The literary style is easy to read and the book is difficult to put down. I'm sure that having read this book will enhance my trip to the rain forest. Thanks!!

Best Intro to the Natural History of Tropical Forests.......2006-10-15

Buy this Book! This book is a great read for anybody who is interested in life on our planet. It would make a dandy companion to E.O. Wilson's "The Diversity of Life."

ENCHANTING DEPICTION OF THE RAIN FOREST.......2006-04-10

Among books that aim to express to readers the wonders of the rain forest, this one stands out. In 17 chapters that touch upon different aspects of the rain forest, the authors transmit their own passion for the rain forest and the unique intricacies that make rain forests some of the most precious places on earth.

The book is not written as one coherent whole, but rather as 17 individual chapters or essays. Below is a brief sample of topics:

- the strategy of dung scarabs to capture important proteins
- the symbiotic relationship of sloths with the trees they prefer
- the mimicry some insects have developed to elude their main predators, birds
- the reason why some birds have developed migratory patterns to temperate climates
- the reason why some frogs developed a parental care strategy and even marsupial pouches
- the reason why some trees are hollow
- how parasited species can benefit even in the most unlikely scenarios
- why some plants developed hallucinogenic substances

These are just a few of the topics covered in the book. It is written in a pop science format, so that an interested reader will easily understand and appreciate these and many more concepts. The authors carefully explain the relationships, often comparing the rain forest experience with those of temperate forests. The authors also focus on the possible evolutionary principles involved in adaptations presented.

This is the very best introductory book on the subject. It is designed to excite the reader into learning more and even visiting the rain forest. In the mold of Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Dawkins, Miyata and Forsyth write a masterpiece that will make the reader feel smarter after reading it.

Average customer rating:

Great, whether you get to the rain forest or not

Tropical Rain Forest
Donald M. Silver
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Nature's Green Umbrella (Mulberry Books)
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One Small Square: Woods
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ASIN: 0070580510

Book Description

Bats and big cats. Armies of ants. Squawking parrots. Strangling figs. From the ground up to the tree tops, the tropical rainforest teems with life. Stunning drawings, step-by-step experiments, fun-to-do activities, and fascinating facts abound in this magical exploration of an essential ecosystem, in danger of disappearing forever. Tropical Rain Forest is a new edition to the One Samll Square Series not previously published in hardcover.

Customer Reviews:

Great, whether you get to the rain forest or not.......2002-03-14

The One Small Square series is wonderful: the concept is that you take a hypothetical square foot of an environment- woods, seashore, arctic tundra, rainforest, etc.- and explore it at all levels, from underground to the sky. Each book is extensively illustrated with all of the inter-connected layers of life- from fungus to megafauna- in the Square. On the margin of most of the 2-page spreads are activities that you can do, no matter where you live. Food chains, life cycles & seasons are explored, and the back section has an identification guide to all of the life forms presented in the book.

We took One Small Square: Tropical Rain Forest with us on a trip to the Brazilian rainforest with our 5 & 7 year olds. The book was great- for the grown ups & the kids! We used it as a guide to identify many of the animals & plants we saw, as background to help the girls understand what they were going to see, as reading on the long trips up the river. We did many of the activities- some before, some during, and some after the trip. Our guide was so impressed with it that he ordered a copy for himself, saying that it was hard to find something with so much information that was both accurate and interesting to people at many different levels of knowledge. Highly recommended!

If I Ran the Rain Forest: All About Tropical Rain Forests (Cat in the Hat's Lrning Libry)
Average customer rating:

Great starter book on rain forests!

Not impressed

Interesting way to introduce rain forests to children

If I Ran the Rain Forest: All About Tropical Rain Forests (Cat in the Hat's Lrning Libry)
Bonnie Worth
Manufacturer: Random House Books for Young Readers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Cat in the Hat's Learning Library: Inside Your Outside: All About the Human Body (Cat in the Hat's Lrning Libry)

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ASIN: 0375810978
Release Date: 2003-04-22

Book Description

The Cat in the Hat takes Sally and Dick for an “umbrella-vator” ride through the understory, canopy, and emergent layers of a tropical rain forest, encountering a host of plants, animals, and native peoples along the way.

Customer Reviews:

Great starter book on rain forests!.......2007-03-29

My 6 yr old really enjoyed this intro book on rain forests. One of the off-shore excursions on our upcoming cruise is the Costa Rican rain forest and I purchased several books on rain forests to get him familiar with the topic This one was the perfect intro book for him. It was written in classic Seuss rhyming style which was engaging for my son. The illustrations were colorful and eye-catching and the information about rain forests was just enough for a 6yr old to understand and digest. We read it while also listening to a "Relax with Tropical Rain Forest" audio CD which provided an added dimension to the rain forest learning experience. I plan on reading the other books on rain forests to him but selectively as they contain much more advanced information.

Not impressed.......2007-01-18

This is the first time I've read a book from the Cat in the Hat Learning Library, so I wasn't sure what to expect. But I wasn't expecting this.

The illustrations make it look like the kids and the cat are having an adventure in the rainforest. But they aren't. They're just on a field trip, I guess.

The book goes over the four levels of the rainforest and names the different types of animals, plants, and people you would find in a rainforest. The main focus of the book seems to be maintaining the rhyme scheme rather than giving detailed information. At times, clarity is even sacrificed in order to maintain the rhyme. For example, "Millions of acres of land every year are cut down..." Cutting down land is confusing to a child. Usually trees or plants are cut down.

One funny thing was that the cat in the hat says he will give you a prize if you find these six things. Well, he's talking to the kids he is traveling with, not "you" the reader. So my 5-year-old son jumped in and named the things, then said "Where's my prize?"

So after around 40 pages of naming and discussing rainforest plants, animals, and people, a bulldozer showed up on the second to last page and the animals are running for their lives. On the last page the cat in the hat says "Save these trees please!" The end. Well, I like the environmental theme, but I had an awful lot of explaining to do when the bulldozer showed up. I think the book should have begun where it ended, because that is where the real story is. I buy books for my kids in the hope that the author can explain and illustrate a topic better than I can.

My son only asked me to read this book once, then never picked it up again.

I gave the book two stars for the unusual format. The novelty might appeal to some kids.

Interesting way to introduce rain forests to children.......2004-10-25

This is one of the best of The Cat in the Hat's Learning Library. The rhyming style is excellent. This book introduces such concepts as four levels of the rain forest, transpiration, animals in the forest, pollination, and camouflage.

Pop-Up: Explore a Tropical Forest (National Geographic Action Book)

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Pop-Up: Explore a Tropical Forest (National Geographic Action Book)
Peggy D. Winston
Manufacturer: National Geographic Children's Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Biology | Science, Nature & How It Works | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0870447572
Release Date: 1996-05-01

Tropical Forest Census Plots: Methods and Results from Barro Colorado Island, Panama and a Comparison with Other Plots (Environmental Intelligence Unit)

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Tropical Forest Census Plots: Methods and Results from Barro Colorado Island, Panama and a Comparison with Other Plots (Environmental Intelligence Unit)
Richard Condit
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3540641440

Book Description

This book provides a detailed account of the methods used to establish the Barro Colorado Island plot - with records on 325,000 individual trees the largest original forest census in the world. It also reviews methodologies used at 11 other large plots that are part of the Center for Tropical Forest Science (CTFS) network. It includes numerous distribution maps as well as maps of key environmental variables. The book is the perfect guide for establishing new plots, including both budgeting and scheduling, and offers details on the required methodology.

Tropical Rain Forests: An Ecological and Biogeographical Comparison

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Tropical Rain Forests: An Ecological and Biogeographical Comparison
Richard Primack , and Richard Corlett
Manufacturer: Blackwell Publishing Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Environmental Science | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0632045132

Book Description

The popular view of the tropical rainforest as a monolithic tangle of rain-soaked trees, vines, birds, monkeys and big cats is a widespread myth. Tropical Rain Forests: An Ecological and Biogeographical Comparison explodes that myth by showing that rain forests in different tropical regions are unique despite superficial similarities.Throughout the book the distinctive characteristics of rain forests in tropical Asia, tropical America, Africa, Madagascar, New Guinea, and Australia are emphasized. After an introduction to the climate, biogeographic history and environment of tropical rain forests, successive chapters are devoted to plants, primates, other mammals, birds, canopy animals and insects. The final chapter considers the impact of people on tropical forests and discusses conservation strategies that, based upon the characteristics of particular regions rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, may prove more effective in preserving different forest ecosystems.This exciting new book, filled with natural history examples, figures and stunning photographs, will be invaluable reading for undergraduate students in a wide range of courses. The book 's comparative approach also poses many questions that will be of special interest to researchers and advanced students.

A Tropical Rainforest: The Nature of Biodiversity in Borneo at Belalong, Brunei

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A Tropical Rainforest: The Nature of Biodiversity in Borneo at Belalong, Brunei
David S. Edwards , and Earl of Cranbrook
Manufacturer: Sun Tree Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 9810055315

Green Phoenix : Restoring the Tropical Forests of Guanacaste, Costa Rica

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Hope for the forest, the people, and biodiversity
Good case study of an important conservation project
RE-CREATION
Deforestation? How about rainforest restoration!?!

Green Phoenix : Restoring the Tropical Forests of Guanacaste, Costa Rica
William Allen
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0195108930

Book Description

Can we prevent the destruction of the world's tropical forests? In the fire-scarred hills of Costa Rica, award-winning science writer William Allen found a remarkable answer: we can not only prevent their destruction--we can bring them back to their former glory. In Green Phoenix, Allen tells the gripping story of a large group of Costa Rican and American scientists and volunteers who set out to save the tropical forests in the northwestern section of the country. It was an area badly damaged by the fires of ranchers and small farmers; in many places a few strands of forest strung across a charred landscape. Despite the widely held belief that tropical forests, once lost, are lost forever, the team led by the dynamic Daniel Janzen from the University of Pennsylvania moved relentlessly ahead, taking a broad array of political, ecological, and social steps necessary for restoration. They began with 39 square miles and, by 2000, they had stitched together and revived some 463 square miles of land and another 290 of marine area. Today this region is known as the Guanacaste Conservation Area, a fabulously rich landscape of dry forest, cloud forest, and rain forest that gives life to some 235,000 species of plants and animals. It may be the greatest environmental success of our time, a prime example of how extensive devastation can be halted and reversed. This is an inspiring story, and in recounting it, Allen writes with vivid power. He creates lasting images of pristine beaches and dense forest and captures the heroics and skill of the scientific teams, especially the larger-than-life personality of the maverick ecologist Daniel Janzen. It is a book everyone concerned about the environment will want to own.

Customer Reviews:

Hope for the forest, the people, and biodiversity.......2007-03-31

I have the greatest respect and admiration for Dan Janzen and have supported the Rincon Rainforest project before seeing this book. This book is a good explanation for why the Guanacaste Conservation Area in Costa Rica may be the key to all successful tropical forest conservation projects.

The book also describes the life work of one of the most important conservation biologist of all time and all of those who have been pushed, coereced, reluctantly persuaded and inspired to do this most significant project. If you are discouraged in any way about the fate of the diverse tropical forests you should read this book. It truely is an inspiration.

Good case study of an important conservation project.......2006-04-21

Without duplicating the book description, I'll just explain why I would recommend this book to anyone interested in conservation.

Although the creation of Guanacaste Conservation Area -- which combines pre-existing national parks and added land between and around them, along with a marine sector -- is unique in representing the world's only large-scale tropical forest restoration project, the story illustrates elements common to nature conservation projects in general. These include the importance of understanding the local ecology (in this case, especially forest succession and the necessity of controlling fires); political aspects, both local and national (Costa Rican president, parks service, etc.); how money is raised and land purchased or otherwise secured; and ways of involving people from the local area in conservation and the importance of that.

I have just returned from Guanacaste and was impressed by the program that trains local people as "parataxonomists" to help with the huge task of identifying and cataloguing the area's many species. Another program gives instruction on natural history to children in local schools. The result has been an important cultural shift toward appreciating nature and the many benefits it provides.

The writing is sometimes long-winded and ponderous, but the careful recounting of details was worthwhile, and the integration of interesting snippets of tropical biology and anectodes of the people involved made it an enjoyable read.

Of particular interest as well was the recounting of the reaction to the revolutionary suggestion that tropical forest can indeed be restored on land taken out of agriculture, an assertion that initially met with skepticism and alarm from conservation organizations, as it conflicted with the conservation message that a tropical forest, once cut down, can "never" regenerate.

In this end, this is a great and stirring conservation success story. The book illustrates how much hard work that entailed on the part of many dedicated people.

RE-CREATION.......2005-07-12

Author William Allen takes you to a world you have truly never seen: to the remarkable life that teems in the forests, far beyond Costa Rica's cities and towns. A powerful saga of courage, leadership and stewardship, this epic tale of a hardy (and sometimes foolhardy) group of scientists who feel compelled to fight the destruction a fragile community reads like a swashbuckling romance with Mother Earth! Another book I enjoyed immensely along with this one before visiting the country, was the history "Costa Rica The Last Country The Gods Made." It came out almost exactly ten years before this one and has an elegant literary flair, providing a very satsifying blend of scholarship and imagination.

Deforestation? How about rainforest restoration!?!.......2002-01-31

How often have you've heard the tales of gloom and doom regarding the deforestation of the tropics? Undoubtedly, the numbers are grim and the outlook for many forests is not good. This is why this story, wonderfully told by William Allen, a science writer at the ST. LOUIS DISPATCH, is particularly refreshing and guardedly optimistic.

Allen craftily weaves anecdote with history, real people with events to present a story that tells how a relatively small park in NW Costa Rica (Guanacaste National Park) developed into the Guanacaste Conservation Area, some 10 times larger than its original size. But the story is not limited to the success in creating a larger park. Rather, the author depicts the efforts of a determined group of Costa Rican and foreign scientists (led by Daniel Janzen) as they attempt to reverse the effects of deforestation and actually bring a substantial area back to some semblance of its original state.

The story delves quite a bit into Janzen's personality and raises the issue of a foreigner's role in a project such as this. Would it succeed without him? Just what would it take to restore non-virgin forest? Is this an idea that might work elsewhere? Just a few of the intriguing questions dealt with in this book.

I particularly enjoyed the beginning of each chapter, where the author introduces an anecdote upon which the rest of chapter usually builds. The anecdotal information is highly entertaining of itself, and when used as metafor, it is easier to remember the larger points made.

If you're into eco-whatever, this is great stuff...

Book Description

Fully revised, this landmark volume takes readers deep inside the "living cathedral" of the forest interior and examines the forces that threaten the biome's survival.

Tropical Rainforest presents an action plan for the concerned individual and the whole of humanity to implement before the potentially bleak consequences of tropical deforestation become unavoidable. Combining comprehensive fact-filled text and an extensively revised bibliography and tables with 300 stunning full-color photographs, this book is destined to remain the leading reference on this vital issue.

Among the topics covered are:
* What is a Tropical Rainforest?: Examines the vast array of species and life forms that comprise the rainforest
* This Web of Life: Explains the dynamics of the rainforest, including pollination and seed dispersal and the food chain
* Threats to the Forest: Details the contributing factors to rainforest destruction, including timber extraction, mining and pollution, and cattle raising
* What Do We Lose?: Focuses of the effects of deforestation, including dwindling land, natural, and human resources
* A Blueprint for Survival: Offers concrete plans for conservation, such as habitat preservation, and funding for rainforest projects
* Reason for Hope: Assesses the future of the tropical rainforest.

Reviews:
Praise for the previous edition:
"...big, beautifully designed and illustrated with extraordinary photographs." -Friends of the Earth

Customer Reviews:

Great Rainforest Book.......2006-10-20

Mr. Newman has written one of the great and comprehensive rainforest books on the market. The book is loaded with great pictures from Mr. Newmans travels around the world. His book is research based but he explains it in a manner that everyone can understand. It is well organized. Each chapter has a differernt topic that breaks down the complexities into a much simplier discussion. He also outlines his beliefs in how society can save the rainforests. It is an outstanding book, one of the few everyone should own on the topic.

An Introduction to Tropical Rain Forests

Average customer rating:

this book was very enriching and enlightening, spiritual

An Introduction to Tropical Rain Forests
T. C. Whitmore
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 019850148X

Book Description

This new edition of Whitmore's classic introduction to tropical rain forests has been comprehensively revised and updated, reflecting the changes which have taken place since it was first published in 1990. The sections on human impact have been extended to include a new global assessment of deforestation as well as details of new research on biodiversity and conservation. Discussion of the future of the rain forests and priorities for action is incorporated. The book remains unique in linking rain forest biology and ecology with silviculture, and with concerns over sustainable resource utilization and the future of the tropical rain forests. It includes sections on the diverse animal and plant life forms which are found in the rain forest, and the interconnections between them. Nutrient cycles and forest dynamics are fully explained, with new data on ecophysiology and forest microclimates. The geologic and climatic history of rain forests, and the wide-spread canopy disturbances now understood to have occurred in the past, are explored. Accessibly written, and illustrated throughout with line-drawings and photographs, this is a must for biology and geography students, and anyone else who seeks to know more about the nature and importance of the world's tropical rain forests.

Customer Reviews:

this book was very enriching and enlightening, spiritual.......1999-03-10

It was a book that helped me gain knowledge but it also made me want to go out and explore it, it was fabulous Icould hardly put it down and it helped a lot with my research paper. Thanks

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