James F. Hancock, James Hare, Adam Hart, Brian Hayden, Bernd Heinrich, Robert Heinsohn, Jürgen Heinze, Dirk Helbing, Joan Herbers, Kristina Hillesland, Jane Hirshfield, Owen Holland, David Holway, Kathy Horton, Jerome Howard, Sarah Hrdy, David Hu, Krista Ingram, Benoît Jahyny, Rudolf Jander, Robert Jeanne, Raphael Jeanson, Christine Johnson, Clara Jones, Pedro Jover, Ken Kamler, Michael Kaspari, Kevin Kelly, Raymond Kelly, Robert Kelly, Mimi Koehl, Ron Kube, Jennie Kuzdzal-Fick, John La Polla, Steven LeBlanc, Ed LeBrun, Sally Leys, Dangsheng Liang, John Lighton, John Longino, Lloyd Loope, Margaret Lowman, Tom Loynachan, Don Mabry, Richard Machalek, Jonathan Majer, George Markin, Michael Martin, Norman Mason, Keiichi Masuko, Terry McGlynn, Stuart McKamey, Brian McNab, Raymond Mendez, Amy Mertl, Alexander Mikheyev, Peter Molnar, Nicholas Money, Corrie Moreau, John C. Moser, Ulrich Mueller, Dennis H. “Paddy” Murphy, Peter Nonacs, Sean O’Donnell, Joachim Offenberg, Paulo Oliveira, Jaak Panksepp, John Allen Paulos, Roger Payne, Christian Peeters, Renkang Peng, Dale Peterson, Michael Poulsen, Scott Powell, Mary Power, Stephen Pratt, Frederick Prete, Mary Price, David Queller, Neel Kamal Rastogi, Alan Rayner, Jim Reichman, the late and great Carl Rettenmeyer, Howard Rheingold, Steve Rissing, Simon Robson, Flavio Roces, Michael Rosenberg, Nathan Rosenstein, Stephen Roxburgh, Kari Ryder Wilkie, Bob Sacha, Victor Sadras, Guillermo Sanchez, Nathan Sanders, Joe Sapp, Leslie Saul, Paul Schmid-Hempel, Thomas Schoener, Caspar Schöning, Ruud Schoonderwoerd, Timothy Schowalter, Ted Schultz, Thomas Seeley, Jose Serrano, Cosma Shalizi, Paul Sherman, Peter Simmons, Monica Smith, Myron Smith, Cristian Solari, Frederick Spiegel, Dan Stahler, Sky Stephens, Nigel Stork, Robin Stuart, Andrew Suarez, Frank Sulloway, Adam Summers, Kelly Swing, Robert Taylor, Guy Theraulaz, Melissa Thomas, Barbara Thorne, Adam Tofilski, Howard Topoff, James Traniello, Walter Tschinkel, Neil Tsutsui, Jeffery Scott Turner, Stephen Vander Wall, Paul Van Mele, Steven Vogel, David Wardle, Christopher Waters, James Waters, Steven Watts, Bruce Webber, Rüdiger Wehner, Anja Weidenmüller, Phyllis Weintraub, Michael Weiser, John Wenzel, Ronald M. Weseloh, James Wetterer, Diana Wheeler, Alex Wild, Paul Williams, Bastow Wilson, David Sloan Wilson, Gina Wimp, Neville Winchester, Jon Wraith, Richard Wrangham, Peter Howard Wrege, Andrew Yang, Stephen Yanoviak, Elsa Youngsteadt, Douglas Yu, and Melinda Zeder. My adventure companion, the lady of my life, Melissa Wells, took pleasure in my text no matter how often she read it and offered all the encouragement I could wish for.
The National Geographic Society contributed greatly to this book in both grants from the Expeditions Council and assignments for the magazine. I’m especially thankful to Rebecca Martin and Chris Johns for their generous support.
A special thanks to University of California Press for the meticulous care and attention to craftsmanship that saw the book through to completion. My extraordinary UCP team included my sponsoring editor, Blake Edgar, who snapped up my book idea enthusiastically when he had the chance; three vigilant copyeditors, Anne Canright, Chalon Emmons, and Juliana Froggatt; the text designer, Jody Hanson; and the jacket designer, Lia Tjandra. Production editor Dore Brown in particular went the extra mile for me every day, asking incisive questions about each line of text. I thank my agent, Katinka Matson of Brockman, Inc., for connecting me with these fine people.
notes
Introduction
Epigraph adapted from Rolf Jacobsen, “Country Roads,” translated by Robert Bly, with change to feminine by permission of Robert Bly, in Robert W. Bly, ed., News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1995).
1. Ant population in the ground and litter is estimated at 8 million per hectare in EJ Fittkau, H Klinge 1973, On biomass and trophic structure of the central Amazonian rain forest ecosystem, Biotropica 5: 2–14. Canopy ant population is put at 16 million per hectare