Tropical Rain Forest Ecology

As in the first edition, this book deliberately dwells on the trees and other plants that make up the forests in which the animals live. Nevertheless, the forest cannot exist without the animals, so this edition does more justice to the zoological literature. A great deal of the text has been expanded and re-arranged to accommodate the surge of new work, which has not only added to our knowledge of rain forests but has often questioned certain dogmas in the subject. Although some of the early parts of the book have come through unscathed, having withstood the test of time, every chapter has been updated. Major revisions were called for in the sections on quaternary pollination and the sections dealing with anthropological issues. As in the first edition, the principal aim has been to show the importance of change and diversity in the rain forest, and to try to indicate how humans and their habits are involved in this.