Review

This book seems to belong to – and certainly should be used side by side with – the late Marius Jacobs’ “The tropical rain forest – a first encounter” (Dutch version 1981; English edition 1988, 295 pp.), as it has much the same design and contents, and is similarly richly illustrated; it also aims at a better understanding of the necessity in saving the forest for the future. The present volume somewhat more focuses on ecology proper, tries to explain it, and tells what is happening today with the forests, to a broad reading public which surely includes politicians and all kinds of tropical scientists. There is a glossary, and for readers further interested a list of references, and a general index. The nicely executed book contains, as compared to Jacobs’, much additional information, recently discovered facts, new results of forest research, and it offers new opinions on forest ecology, formulated and seen from a somewhat different angle, as by a forester. There is a panorama of most items of tropical rain forest ecology, covered by 10 chapters, with the following headings: An introduction to tropical rain forests – What are tropical rain forests? – Plant life – Rain forest animals – Interconnections between plants and animals/the web of life – Tropical rain forests through time – Forest dynamics – Nutrients and their cycles – Species richness – Tropical rain forests yesterday, today and tomorrow.