The Song of the Dodo

Although the narrative in David Quammen's The Song of the Dodo is sprawling and peripatetic, the author's focus is not. While Quammen jumps between focusing on others' research (either in the field, in their offices, or in scientific journals), visiting sites himself (both with and not in conjunction with field biologists) and generally waxing on the topic, he's always engaging, and is always able to relate what that particular tidbit has to do with island biogeography.

The Song of the Dodo isn't focused on the dodo at all. Sure, our favorite wacky looking fowl does make a few appearances, but really, this is a paean to Alfred Russell Wallace. The book begins and closes with an account of Wallace's journeys to the South Pacific, with the ending of the author retracing Wallace's footsteps. Between those bookends, we have discussion of conservation, the pressures that isolated habitats (such as islands) exert on evolution (here we have many examples, from insects to birds to mammals to reptiles, covering island gigantism, insular dwarfism, species evolving to fill niches that are typically filled by other species, and much more), how the theory of island biogeography can be used to inform the design of nature reserves (and if this is a proper use for the theory), the treatment of Aboriginal people in Australia, the "right" amount of species for a particular island (and how this is achieved through migrations and extinctions), and much more.

I would recommend this unreservedly to anyone interested in natural history or biology in general.