Life in the Treetops: Adventures of a Woman in Field Biology by Margaret
Lowman, Yale University Press, $27.50, ISBN 0300078188
You might expect the rainforest canopy to be moist and mossy, ferny and damp
as its name suggests, but it鈥檚 more like a desert on stilts. Atop trees more
than 35 metres high, the canopy top is exposed to the fierce heat of the
tropical Sun, and rainwater swiftly evaporates or drips down to the shady realms
far below. These desert conditions produce tropical rainforest trees with thick,
waxy, succulent leaves.
This is just one of the surprises that Margaret Lowman springs in Life in
the Treetops. When searching for new frontiers, humanity has put on
pressure suits to explore outer space and used artificial lungs to dive into the
deep sea. But the tall tropical canopy has been there all along, visible if only
we looked up, and yet one of the least-known places on Earth.
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Lowman was one of the first to work out how to get up there and study the
canopy. And though I鈥檝e never met her, she鈥檚 becoming a bit of a heroine of mine
as she now takes us with her. I have every reason to follow. My passion is for
bats鈥攔ainforest bats. I鈥檝e set nets to catch bats from the ground
upwards. The next step will be to head for the heights and set my mist nets
above the canopy for a biological 鈥渨ho goes there?鈥�
Most biologists, being about 2 metres tall, tend to survey about 2 metres out
of the 35 metres of a rainforest and no more. Bat biologists are no exception.
But I鈥檓 convinced that our knowledge of the variety and numbers of different bat
species making up a rainforest community is biased by our terrestrialism. From
entomologists to meteorologists to botanists, that same realisation is leading
to incredibly creative ways to 鈥済o climb a tree鈥�.
Lowman has been there since the beginning. In Africa, we sail up with her on
a 鈥渃anopy raft鈥�, a huge circular inflatable dragged and manoeuvred across the
canopy by a hot air balloon. In Panama, she lifts us up in a construction crane.
This one isn鈥檛 helping to destroy the forest, it鈥檚 a tool for building a better
understanding of how it works.
There鈥檚 room for fright here: inching up ropes or swaying along walkways
between trees so high up that two-way radios are de rigueur for
ground-to-treetop communication. But in each new situation, the excitement of a
scientist suddenly enabled to take better samples and ask better questions with
a newly arrived method comes shining through Lowman鈥檚 descriptions. Currently,
she is figuring out why the eucalyptuses are dying back all over Australia, and
why recently most of the flush of new leaves on birch trees has been
disappearing within a few days.
Through a project known as Earthwatch, people looking for an unusual vacation
have paid to accompany Lowman as field assistants. One group met her at the
bottom of a sassafras tree to learn the techniques they would be using that
night, only to find themselves drenched in bird droppings and feathers as some
roosting brush turkeys took fright. Lowman feared it would put these willing
field hands off science for life, but the following night they came back,
ponchos and towels pinned over their heads.
And she鈥檒l change the way you look at your local rainforest. Last summer, I
led a field team on a bat survey in Guyana. We cut slender saplings between 2
and 3 centimetres thick for our netting poles. There were so many of them, it
seemed obvious they鈥檇 grow right back. Yet Lowman鈥檚 studies show that a seedling
a mere 10 centimetres tall could be 30 years old鈥攋ust waiting for the
opportunity to get bigger. And that鈥檚 probably only one out of 150 000 seeds
that even had the luck to germinate and get in the queue for sunlight. Wow!
Compared with that, a gazelle on the African savannah has a good chance.
Pioneer work
Lowman has got me hooked another way, too. Ever since I discovered feminism
in high school, I鈥檝e kept an eye on how women go about things differently from
men. I like this book because it鈥檚 about her feelings and her nonscientific
opinions as well as her persistent passion for field biology. After all, the
physical, emotional and scientific aspects of the field experience are
inseparable.
Many 鈥渆xploralogues鈥� by male travellers weave in the action behind the
science, but Lowman shares a few tales that only a woman in the field could
tell. For example, the bladder is never quite as efficient after two children as
before. So, getting a postpartum bladder to cooperate all night long when you鈥檙e
in a hammock in Africa (and the way to the loo is strewn with snakes and
scorpions) is no small biological triumph.
Often, the transitions from paragraphs about science to paragraphs about her
life are a bit abrupt. But her efforts to incorporate a well-rounded perspective
on her experiences as a woman in science are as pioneering as her research.
She鈥檚 leaving it to the women of science who come after to perfect the literary
style.