The Tapir's Morning Bath

the long version

"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 Panama's Barro Colorado Island today. Tropical and steamy, the six-square-mile island, a locus of scientific activity since 1923, contains the best-studied rain forest in the world.". "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 traces the history of modern biology from its earliest days of collection and classification through the decline of the naturalist tradition to the days of intense niche specialization and rigorous scientific quantification."--BOOK JACKET.