ASIA: TOO MUCH!—BURT'S INFLUENCE BEYOND THE BORDERS OF THE USA

摘要

Burt Barnes quietly had an active research program that took place in Asia beginning in the 1980s that is often overlooked when reflecting upon his career, and relatively little is known about his exploits in Asia. Burt was one of the very first western scientists - particularly amazing because he was a field ecologist -to visit China in the early 1980s (Figure 1). His work during these early years was largely exploratory, but was focused upon identifying sister species that were found in North America and China—that is, species similar in morphology between the two continents that clearly descended from a common ancestor. His work took him to extremely remote areas of China, including the Yellow Mountains, all while he was heavily "escorted." Manyresidents of these rural areas of China had never seen an "outsider" before, and as Burt stopped to interact with the local children—in one photo, giving them balloons—the expressions on their faces showed it clearly. He found these experiences fascinating, and incorporated them into a lecture about China in his Woody Plants class at the University of Michigan, while fully dressed in a Mao-style uniform he obtained during his time there.