Investigating the Trees of Amazonia

When in doubt, sniff a tree. No, really! Botanists and rainforest ecologists follow their noses to identify certain species in addition to looking at the plant's flowers, and counting leaves on branches. This is the second part in a series about The Field Museum's Rapid Inventory No. 27, a journey through the forests between the rivers Tapiche and Blanco in Peru. Every year, the Museum's conservation group [the Action Center!] gathers together leading scientific experts across a number of disciplines (botany, zoology, geology, and anthropology) in order to gain an understanding of little-known areas of the rainforest. They work with local communities and their governments to help inform decisions made for conserving these unique, precious, and threatened parts of the world.