In a Patch of Fireweed - A Biologist's Life in the Field (Paperback, Revised)

Heinrich is quintessentially the curious naturalist, happiest when stalking the odd bird, pursuing caterpillars, or observing "rafts" of whirligig beetles along a lakefront. In this charming and stylish volume, he combines biographical details with his economic-ecological approach to flora and fauna - embellishing the whole with precisionist pencil drawings. The German-born zoologist (now at the U. of Vermont) spent his earliest years escaping from Russian-occupied areas. His family eventually settled in the woods, gathering mushrooms and other edibles to exchange for goods in town. Father was already a collector of rare birds for museums, so young Heinrich clearly grew up in the naturalist tradition. Once in the US, he describes his early academic career and a thesis on thermoregulation in insects, the opposite of a senior scientist's. Heinrich postulated - correctly - that certain moths maintained constant temperature in flight (despite changing air temperatures) by dissipating heat generated by flight muscles. This approach - how species have evolved to use energy economically - later developed into the basis of his impressive Bumblebee Economics (1979). Now Heinrich pursues the same kind of time-motion-energy-survival questions across a broader variety of creatures. We follow his reasoning in examining whirligig behavior, in a variety of predator/prey interactions, in studies of the gaudy caterpillars that taste bad and the cryptic caterpillars that use camouflage. An underlying theme is the co-evolution of species, the sense of the inter-relatedness that has created the complex economy of the natural world. This comes to the fore especially in the title chapter, in which Heinrich describes the burned-out patch on his Maine farmland that sees a succession of growth and invaders beginning with the airborne seeds of fireweed. Finally, the bumblebees descend to drink the fireweed nectar - and to inspire Heinrich's magnum opus. To be read and savored for the writing, the drawings, and the science. (Kirkus Reviews)

Why would a grown man chase hornets with a thermometer, paint whirligig beetles bright red, or track elephants through the night to fill trash bags with their prodigious droppings? Some might say-to advance science. Bernd Heinrich says-because it's fun. Heinrich, author of the much acclaimed Bumblebee Economics, has been playing in the wilds of one continent or another all his life. In the process, he has become one of the world's foremost physiological ecologists. With In a Patch of Fireweed, he will undoubtedly become one of our foremost writers of popular science. Part autobiography, part case study in the ways of field biology, In a Patch of Fireweed is an endlessly fascinating account of a scientist's life and work. For the author, it is an opportunity to report not just his results but the curiosity, humor, error, passion, and competitiveness that feed into the process of discovery. For the reader, it is simply a delight, a rare chance to share the perceptions of an unusual mind fully in tune with the inner workings of nature. Before his years of research in the woodlands and deserts of North America, the New Guinea highlands, and the plains of East Africa, Heinrich had a sense of the wild that few people in this century can know. He tells the whole story, from his refugee childhood hidden in a German forest, eating mice fried in boar fat, to his ongoing research in the woods surrounding his cabin in Maine.

General

Imprint:	Harvard University Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	September 1991
First published:	September 1991
Authors:	Bernd Heinrich
Dimensions:	230 x 152 x 15mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	208
Edition:	Revised
ISBN-13:	978-0-674-44551-2
Categories:	Books > Sport & Leisure > Natural history, country life & pets > General
LSN:	0-674-44551-1
Barcode:	9780674445512

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