AMAZON EXPEDITIONS: MY QUEST FOR THE ICE-AGE EQUATOR
Book ID/图书代码： 08510008B21490
English Summary/英文概要： In this vivid memoir of a life in science, ecologist Paul Colinvaux takes his readers from the Alaskan tundra to steamy Amazon jungles, from the Galapagos Islands (before tourists had arrived) to the high Andes and the Darien Gap in Panama. He recounts an adventurous tale of exploration in the days before GPS and satellite mapping, and a tale no less exhilarating of his battle to disprove a hypothesis endorsed by most of the scientific community. Colinvaux’s grand endeavour, begun in the 1960s, was to find fossil evidence of the ice-age climate and vegetation of the entire American equator, from Pacific to Atlantic. The accomplishment of the task by the author and his colleagues involved finding unknown ancient lakes, lugging drilling equipment through uncharted Amazon jungle, operating hand drills from rubber boats in water 40 metres deep, and inventing a pollen analysis for a land with 80,000 species of plants. Colinvaux’s years of arduous travel and research ultimately disproved a hotly-defended hypothesis explaining bird distribution peculiarities in the Amazon forest.
tory of how he arrived at a new understanding of the Amazon is at once an adventurous saga, an account of science as it is conducted in the field, and a cautionary tale about the temptation to treat a favoured hypothesis with a reverence that subverts unbiased research.
引自《出版人周刊》
科林沃克斯过去40年来一直从事花粉研究，如今他写出一部科学探险故事。叙述中，他解开了“生态学上最难解开的问题之一”——为何亚马逊丛林是世界上生物物种最多的地区？冰河时期的灾难性气候变化是否是造成这个现象的原因？科林沃克斯跨越整个南美洲，得出的结论与科学界普遍认识的假设相左。假设认为，赤道一直持续干燥，所以生物只能在被包围的土地上存活。但是科林沃克斯的研究结果是，赤道的气候是湿润的，并且有4度的降温。这是在充满挑战性的环境下的实地考察记录，值得对环境和生物演变感兴趣的人一读。
Chinese Summary/中文概要： 生态学家保罗·科林沃克斯对科学的生动记录让读者感受不一般的旅程：从阿拉斯加苔原到潮湿的亚马逊丛林，从人迹未至的加拉帕戈斯群岛到安第斯山和巴拿马的达连湾。在没有GPS和卫星地图帮助的日子，他前往探险。从中获得的愉快刺激不亚于他推翻了科学界普遍支持的假设。20世纪60年代起，科林沃克斯致力于寻找出化石，进而了解冰河时代从太平洋到大西洋的美洲赤道的气候和植被。作者与他的同事发现了许多不知名的远古湖泊，在亚马逊丛林中发现打钻仪器，从40米深的水里找到橡皮艇和艇上的手钻，同时还制作出这块拥有80000种植物的土地的花粉分析。科林沃克斯长年累月的奔波和研究最终推翻了关于亚马逊丛林鸟类分布特性的假设。
他对亚马逊为何有新的认识是个探险传奇，也是科学记录和对处理诱惑的警示。(LY)
Awards/获奖情况：From Publishers Weekly
Colinvaux, an ecologist at the forefront of pollen research for the past 40 years, has turned his path breaking career into a scientific detective story, from his days as a graduate student drilling glaciers in the Alaskan tundra, to his explorations of lake beds in the steamy Amazon forest. The narrative follows his efforts to untangle "one of the knottiest problems of ecological theory," why the Amazon is the most biodiverse region in the world, with a unique population of birds and 80,000 plant species. Could this be explained by catastrophic changes in the climate during the ice age? Colinvaux’s research takes him across South America, and his conclusions turn on its head the hypothesis endorsed by most of the scientific community, that the equatorial temperature was constant but arid, so that life could only exist in enclaves (his findings indicates a moist climate and a temperature drop of four degrees). An exciting account of field work under challenging and sometimes dangerous circumstances, this is a rewarding read for anyone with an interest in environmental and biological history.
About the Author/作者介绍： Paul Colinvaux is senior research scientist, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, and professor emeritus, The Ohio State University. He has published extensively on ecological topics and hosted the twenty-part PBS series, What Ecology Really Says. He lives in Woods Hole, MA.
保罗·科林沃克斯是海军生物实验中心的资深研究科学家，并在俄亥俄州立大学担任名誉教授。他出版了大量关于生态的作品，并主持了20集的“生态学究竟是什么”系列节目。他现居马萨诸塞州的伍兹霍尔。
Format:HARDCOVER ILLUSTRATED
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