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Title: Made for Each Other: A Symbiosis of Birds and Pines by Ronald M. Lanner ISBN: 0-19-508903-0 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4 (1 review)

Rating: 4
Summary: A well researched and elegantly presented nature study.
Comment: Ronald Lanner is a professor of Forest Resources at Utah State University. He became fascinated with the ecology of the whitebark pine, the only member of the "stone pine" family in North America, commonly found in high elevations. Its wide distribution, and that of the other stone pines was puzzling, because they tended to have large pinecones that did not open by themselves, and their seeds were large and wingless, and could not be distributed by the wind. Clearly some other agent was responsible for the way these trees would appear in fire ravaged areas, and at very high elevations. But what?

Lanner concludes that Clark's Nutcracker, and related birds around the world, were and still are the instruments of these trees distribution throughout the northern hemisphere, and that this might well be a case of co-evolution; two entirely different species (in this case of two entirely different kingdoms of life), adapting to fill each others needs, to the ben! efit of both.

This is a short and well argued analysis of this relationship, clearly and entertainingly written. Lanner draws not just on his own work, but on the studies of many other scientists and field researchers, and it is one of the hallmarks of his book that he describes their research in some detail, giving you a feel for how science works, with seemingly unconnected studies of plants and wildlife around the world being put together in an increasingly coherent answer to Lanner's original question. It is impeccably scientific, but not dry in the least.

Lanner concludes, as almost any student of nature has to do in this era, with a warning that this beautiful relationship between birds and trees is endangered from several quarters, most notably a virulent man-introduced fungus that is devastating the whitebark pine, and thus also endangering the future of the creatures that depend on it.

The book has color photographs and is elegantly illustrated. As is the cas! e with any really well done book of this kind, you feel as ! if you have learned about a lot more than just the specific topic at hand. The book is really about interdependence--how different life forms, over time, create a network of relationships, so that removing any piece of the puzzle disrupts the whole. It's one thing to hear this line endlessly parroted in the media; it's another thing to have the intricacy and beauty of such an ecosystem laid out before you.

My only quibble is the title--I like it, but as a birder, would have preferred "The Nutcracker Suite." Oh well. (g)