The Ecology of Tropical East Asia. Corlett, R. T. 2019. Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K. 3rd edition. 320 pp. £45.99 (paperback). ISBN 978‐0‐19‐881702‐4.

Images of deforestation for to make way for oil‐palm plantations and dying baby orangutans are easily associated with Tropical East Asia (TEA) on most social media. Reality, as always, is more complex. Those who are interested in the intricate relationships between environment, nature, and society in this region from a scientific viewpoint will do well to read Richard Corlett's work, The Ecology of Tropical East Asia. The author has been working in TEA for most of his professional life and is a respected expert in the region's ecology; hence, I started to read his book with high expectations.

The topic is particularly interesting for several reasons. First, most of TEA is covered with tropical forests that host vast numbers of plant and animal species, making this area one of the most biodiverse in the world. Second, this 15–25% of global biodiversity is also responsible for a substantial amount of carbon sequestration and storage (O'Connor 2008). Third, in the rapidly developing countries of the region, China, Malaysia, and Indonesia, the sudden rise of human standards of living and the steadily increasing human population have resulted in frequent conflicts between nature and humans and increasing threats to native ecosystems (Wilcove et al. 2013). However, the emerging middle classes in these countries tend to be more environmentally conscious (Atkinson 1999); hence, conservation action safeguarding this biodiversity hotspot is not only timely, but also more promising now than ever. Therefore, understanding its complex ecological and socioeconomic processes is crucial to conserving biodiversity and carbon storage in the region. This book opens a door to everyone toward that understanding and gives good guidance on a number of timely issues.

This third edition of the book is not merely a reprint. Professor Corlett has extensively updated it, including research published in the last decade. Results emerging from the use of novel methods, such as remote sensing and DNA barcoding, are also included, further impressing the reader with the soundness of science in this new edition.

The first section introduces the reader to TEA and its geography and delves into its exciting history, including the complex set of tectonic movements, effects of past climate changes and volcanic eruptions, and the arrival of the first humans. The author often offers several alternative hypotheses, illustrating the uncertainties in this field and the historical complexity of the area. It is difficult to get through the somewhat prosaic climatic data, but these are necessary to recognizing how environmental constraints shaped the vegetation types in TEA and to understanding its biogeography. By the end of this large section, readers will have gained an overall understanding of how the interplay among precipitation patterns, historical events, and anthropogenic influence shaped the flora and fauna and why geographically relatively close areas, sometimes almost neighboring islands, developed in different ways and differ so markedly in the organisms they host.

The second part, deals with ecology sensu stricto, and it is fascinating that the entire life cycle of plants is covered: “seed to seed,” as the author puts it. Topics discussed here include tropical forest succession, how the distance from a conspecific individual, density dependence, and dispersal ability shape communities through seedling mortality, and traits influencing adult tree survival. Although this part describes general ecological processes, most of the examples come from TEA, or when poorly studied, from other parts of the tropics. For those who are just at the beginning of their journey in tropical ecology, some parts, for instance the significance of lianas and epiphytes, will be highly informative. Unlike the phenology of plants in temperate regions, tropical plant phenology is poorly studied. Thus, this part of the book is of particular importance. Plants are discussed according to their life stages, but the sectioning of animal ecology is based on diet. Herbivores, carnivores, parasites and parasitoids, omnivores, scavengers, and coprophages are all discussed in the different subsections. Particular attention is given to the seasonality and availability of the various food sources. Fascinating examples abound about the intimate relationship between plant and animal species, from pollination, to seed dispersal, to ant‐hosting trees. I especially liked that the author is always eager to draw attention to potential knowledge gaps and to suggest questions for future research. Probably due to the limited number of studies focused on this area, there are relatively few examples from the Sub‐Himalayan TEA, particularly India, Bhutan, and Myanmar.

The discussion of plant and animal ecology continues according to the framework of energy and nutrient circulation and its particularities in TEA. The articulation of limiting factors in different habitats may be of the greatest interest for those who want to learn more about the ecology of TEA forests. Nutrient limitation can be just as important in shaping plant communities as precipitation and soil characteristics. This section seems somewhat short, especially if one considers the complexity of the processes involved. However, the numerous examples from the Neotropics suggest that few studies are available from TEA, which could be a reason for its brevity.

The importance of the increasing pressure on native TEA ecosystems in the recently modernized countries is reflected in the disproportionate length of these chapters. Almost one‐third of the book is dedicated to discussing the conservation‐related negative impacts of the Anthropocene and their possible mitigation. Besides deforestation and the replacement of native forests with oil‐palm and rubber plantations, readers will also learn about the devastating effect of hunting on megafauna and the imperiled dispersal of large‐seeded trees caused by the decline of large‐bodied frugivores. This part, however, does what other conservation‐related books rarely do: it also considers socioeconomic interrelations. This illustrates the bewildering complexity of the issue, with intertwining players and trade‐offs from industry, tourism, agriculture, rural and urban population, conservationists, locals and the Western world. In spite of this seemingly unsolvable situation, the last chapter suggests a variety of potential solutions, from payment for ecosystem services to tourism and achieving general respect for nature in an otherwise environmentally insensitive human population. None of these can work alone, and success depends highly on collaboration among countries, governments, nongovernmental organizations and local rural populations.

Overall, I was not disappointed. The Ecology of Tropical East Asia is an insightful, logically structured synthesis of current ecological knowledge of the region. It is a well‐written textbook that will be equally useful for students and those already working in tropical ecology. It is not an easy bedtime reading; it is dense and information rich—as textbooks usually are. I hope that for all future readers the author's optimistic closing words—“In the Anthropocene, there is no way back, but we can still choose the future.”—provide useful guidance in their future career.