On a blustery day in the windy season, I walked out to my study plot in the tropical cloud forest of Monteverde, Costa Rica. For the last 25 years, I have ascended trees with mountain-climbing gear to study forest canopy biology. Three miles up the trail, one of the largest trees in the plot had toppled, an individual I knew intimately from scores of trips up and down its trunk. I had named this tree “The Mansion” because its giant crown suggests a gracious home of many rooms, each branch festooned with orchids, bromeliads, and ferns, and inhabited by a…
in which, with respect to our name, we are as confused as you are
By nalininadkami
Dr. Nadkarni is a forest ecologist and Professor of Environmental Studies at The Evergreen State College. She carries out field research in the upper canopy of cloud forests of Costa Rica and temperate rainforests of Washington State. She is also President of the International Canopy Network, a non-profit organization that promotes communication among researchers, educators, and conservationists concerned with forest canopies and forest ecosystems.