Chapter 09: Islands on Dry Land

In chapter 9, Elizabeth Kolbert is visiting multiple reserves focusing on different forms of biodiversity, some of which follow the relationships between the different animals and insects found there. One location that explained this relationship was camp 41 miles away from reserve 1202 which had American naturalist, Carl and Marian Rettenmeyer, studying  the Eciton burchelli which is a species of ant. Following the theme of science is a process, we find out that there is “a list of more than three hundred species that live association with the ants” (p. 184). Along with bugs that hitchhike rides on these ants, there is also a whole class of birds that are labeled as ant-followers that pick food around the ants. Whilst trying to estimate a sum of how many species of bugs are in a couple acres of forest, an entomologist named Terry Erwin cam to a conclusion that there may possibly be “thirty million species of arthropods” (p. 185). A question that relates to the findings of the 2 million species found in the camp 41 site is how frequent is it that different species bond with each other on sighting of each other or does the process of them working together take generations [Q]?