John C. Kricher

I like the Peterson Forest field guides like this one because rather than helping you identify a full range of endemic species of plants or animals, it tries to encapsulate the key characteristics of the region's ecological zones. So in this guide you learn about the dominant or indicator species of various areas of the west (from Sonoran desert to boreal forest), why going up a mountain ends up being like an ecological trip hundreds of miles northward, and what effects climate and rainfall show more have on the species found. I felt like in a short period of reading that I could understand what's going on in a redwood forests compared to a giant sequioa grove, or why certain areas of oregon have douglas firs and others have oak-pine forests. show less

A Neotropical Companion is a sort of travel guide, textbook and scientific monograph all rolled into one. It's very serious when weighing differing opinions on, for instance, the formation and persistence of savannah. Every twenty pages or so, however, the author throws in a little pun or strange animal sighting to keep you smiling (e.g. "hamburgers on the halfshell" p. 211 or "Bullet ants tend to be rather solitary, but one is quite enough" p. 328). Great read for travelers, naturalists or show more anyone interested in tropical ecosystems. show less

This is a great book for anyone taking a tourist trip to the Neotropics and who wants a better understanding of what they'll be seeing. While the illustrations are beautiful, they lack examples of commonly mentioned plants. Included photographic plates would be a definite plus. Although it's probably the best example I've seen of scientific writing for the layman, at times it seems to try too hard to walk the line between the average traveler and someone with an advanced education in the show more ecological sciences. In other words, it is probably too detailed for one and not sufficiently detailed for the other. Still, a fun read. show less

Interesting and easy to listen to. Coolest thing I learned is why the huge plant eaters actually had enough food without depleting the entire continent is because they were actually mesothermic and therefore only needed about the same amount of food as a bison! Valuable information I'm sure!