An Intimate Knowledge of Trees

摘要

Pointing out certain trees one morning in the rainforest of La Selva, Costa Rica, Deborah Clark sounds like a principal who knows every kid in the elementary school. Clark notes a "teenager" with a telephone pole-sized trunk and an "old monster" canopy tree a meter across that's likely hundreds of years old. To a visitor, the jungle seems bursting with healthy growth. But lately, Clark and her husband, David Clark, have noticed something awry: In warm years, the trees are growing more slowly and more are dying. "No year is the same as any other year," she says, "but it seems to me we're getting all kinds of weirdness."