The Hidden Forest: The Biography of an Ecosystem

by Jon R. Luoma

Book Overview

The tallest species of spruce, hemlock, fir, cedar, and pine trees on earth coexist in the old growth of the H. J. Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon's Cascade Range. Set aside as a living laboratory by the U.S. Forest Service in 1948, the 16,000 acres represent a vital scientific endeavor: the long-term study of a single contained ecosystem. Here, for the first time, researchers from an enormous range of disciplines--forest scientists, botanists,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 087071094X
• ISBN13: 9780870710940
• Release Date: April 2006
• Publisher: Oregon State University Press
• Length: 248 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.2" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

I use it in my class

This book IS required reading for my students. It's a good way for non specialists to get a glimpse of what ecology and environmental science is about.

Draws Scientific Blood!

In the argument on whether or not to save old growth, this book draws scientific blood. I read this book non-stop until I finished. I've never come across a work that so succintly explains the scientific research on old growth forests in the Northwest. Want to understand why old growth is important? Read this book.

Just a Pleasure

I don't think I can add anything of much value to the editorial reviews, all of which are excellent and fairly describe this book. For all you who have ever walked in an old forest, gone hiking in a forest preserve, felt the immensity and wisdom that is offered there, this book brings that gloriously to life again. Luoma's description of his ride in the crane is worth the price alone. Sweeping over the forest canopy twenty-five stories in the air is not for the faint of heart. Only 209 pages of reading, it flies by in just a few days. And he brings the scientists who work on all this to our dens with such intimacy. These are people who work in the field, not huddled over their microscopes, mostly. Pick it up; you won't be sorry.

knowledge made into pleasure reading

Luoma knows how to take important scientific work in forest ecology, and turn it into a book that is a pleasure to read. If learning had been this much fun in school, think how well educated we would all be today! Seriously, I like to read well-written books, but I prefer them to be to tell me things I din't know. Hidden forests does. Another really good read out this season is Bullough's Pond, a treatment of ecological history and industrial revolution that I found fascinating, and it read like a novel.