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In the rainforest canopy...

• http://www.amazon.com/Above-Jungle-Floor-Donald-Perry/dp/0671644262

• http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Rain_Forest

• https://www.google.com/search?q=life+above+the+jungle+floor&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

• http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Rainforest

• https://www.amazon.com/Above-Jungle-Floor-Donald-Perry/dp/0671544543

• https://www.amazon.com/Above-Jungle-Floor-Donald-Perry/dp/0671644262

• https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-671-54454-6

5.0 out of 5 stars A MUST HAVE!!

Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2014

THIS is a book I have cherished for over 25 years! I encountered it whilst beginning my journey towards obtaining a degree in Zoology, later specializing in Ornithology, the study of birds, and bird song, and how birds use altitude and plant / tree saturation to communicate in different ways and to change the sound of their calls and songs, as well as the distance they traveled through the air to their destination, to another bird. This Author clearly is an expert, is passionate in his field and takes us on a fascinating journey into, and within, the rainforests of the world. He begins on the floors of the forest, telling us what lives there and why. He speaks of the rainy season, where water rises so high in the jungle that it can cover 300 ft. trees! And, during this time, the beautiful, rare, endangered, and magical to tribal shaman, pink dolphins appear. They have traveled perhaps tens to hundreds of miles from salty waters but have adapted to tolerate the fresher waters of the jungle. They are pink due to their diet that consists partly of crustaceans and they take on their pink color. The Author then goes on describing levels of the jungles up the heights of the tree trunks, where the orchids grow only from one perfect seed, landing on one opportunistic spot, that just happens to be perfect for growth. Orchids are some of the rare plants that grow naturally on trees, in crooks of branches, in little piles of dirt and plant waste, and not on the ground. He brings you up higher and higher, until he is in the uppermost canopy, where most of the activity is of birds. As far as I know, the pictures in this book have not been obtained by any other scientists, for many years since this book was written, but may exist now. This book is a MUST for anyone! It takes us on a magical journey, to a place we may never have the chance to see! It makes us appreciate the wonders of our world. It gives us the hunger to protect these places, even if we never see them, but just to know.... to have the comfort, they still exist, for others, for our children, for distant generations... It is absolutely one of the most treasured things I own. I will share it with my children one day. Buy it, read it. Let it take you to a place of wonder. Let it light that spark for you to travel. Let it help you to remember to protect our world. Ranching has greatly reduced the size of these areas, as it has become a lucrative way of life in some areas. Become passionate enough to keep track of the situation, to help if you can. There are a couple of very reputable organizations that help protect areas like these by actually buying the land via donations. That is how I found out about the Nature Conservancy. In my opinion they have grown so much since their beginning and saved so many rare places like this. I have no association with them. This is just my personal opinion. But when you read this book, you will not be able to hold yourself back. You will feel compelled to do something to help. This book is that good! Teachers! Parents! Friends! Get this book! Teach our future generations! Show them the wonder, the strength, the mystery, the beauty our world has to offer! Take them on this journey with you! I promise you, you or they, will never forget this book. It's that good! Enjoy it! And thank you for reading my lengthy review! This book deserves it!

NYT / 1988

In coming years, Perry hopes, even bigger automated webs will open new realms for jungle researchers the way scuba gear did for explorers of the seas… It takes reminding that we are making a rare foray into territory that scientists consider equivalent to an unexplored continent. The discovery of life in the rain forests has hardly begun, but the findings already made about the multitudes of plants and animals and their extraordinary interrelations leave many biologists almost breathless.

"If I were 30 years younger, I'd be hanging up there in the ropes myself," says Edward O. Wilson, the 58-year-old Harvard biologist.

THANKS mainly to the warnings of conservationists, by now nearly everyone has heard superlatives about the dwindling rain forests of tropical Africa, Asia and Latin America. Why they abound with so many species is debated. Many, scientists, though not all, Wilson says, attribute it to a combination of factors: the equable climate that allows year-round growth, and the relatively long history that some areas in the tropics, known as refugia, have enjoyed without major climate change, allowing more time for species to evolve. Whatever the reasons, jungles comprise the richest ecosystems on earth, and the least examined. They are home to millions of unnamed plants and animals and have untold lessons to teach about the history and workings of life. This holds doubly true for the upper stories, from some 30 feet above ground to the 150-foot-plus crowns of forest behemoths. There, all-important sunlight drives a riotous dance of life.

"Biologically, that's the hot spot of the forest," said Alan P. Smith, an ecologist at the Smithsonian's Tropical Research Institute in Panama. "That's where most of the photosynthesis is, and most of the plant-animal interactions. That's where the growing tips of the plants are."

Perhaps two-thirds of the rain-forest species live aloft; many plants and animals are born, reproduce and live their entire lives without ever touching the ground. It is estimated that as many as half of all life forms may live in the jungle canopy (most, without doubt, insects).

We stop alongside trees laden with epiphytes, plants that grab nutrients and water from the air and transform many branches into exotic gardens.

Epiphytes - the word comes from Greek for upon plants - use trees for physical support but do not, like parasites, sap nutrients from their hosts. They include not only the ferns, mosses, lichens and liverworts seen in northern forests, but also arboreal cactuses and bromeliads. The latter, relatives of the pineapple, often store rainwater at the base of their erect leaves, supporting microcommunities of insects and even frogs.

And, more than anything else, the epiphytes include orchids. Most of the world's 20,000 species of orchids live on the trunks or branches of tropical trees. In Costa Rica alone, more than 1,100 species of orchids have been identified.

In the late afternoon, just after we glide past a primeval tree fern, Perry halts next to a colorful vine. On stiff stalks are tiny closed flowers and rows of red, ladle-shaped nectaries that attract a variety of hungry birds. A few years ago, watching at another site, Perry made a circumstantial case that this vine uses birds' feet to transport its pollen from one plant to another; the gummy pollen, he believes, sticks to the feet of nectar-sippers and is rubbed off later. If true, Perry says, this is a reproductive strategy scientists have rarely seen.

It is good luck that the same plant grows here, he says, so that observations can continue. Perry's critics in the scientific world charge that many of the observations he has made during more than a decade of research in Costa Rica have been reported as anecdotes in his 1986 book, Life Above the Jungle Floor, and in popular magazines rather than as carefully documented cases in journals. He has no intention, he adds, of carrying out the tedious studies necessary to convince skeptical scientists of his birds'-feet theory. "I'm not going to spend five years proving something I think is obvious," he says.

A friend of his said, "Don Perry is the sort of person people talk about - whether they love him or hate him."

For about a dozen years now, Perry has been a promoter of canopy exploration... "I'm a naturalist," he says. Nor does he apologize for the publicity he wangles, asking: "Why shouldn't I pick a beautiful site that will make the jungle seem more accessible to laymen?" He figures he has done more than many academic specialists to stir public interest in rain-forest ecology and conservation.

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