James L. Patton

Where do you work?

I work at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, which is part of the University of California, Berkeley.

What do you do?

I am a professor in the Department of Integrative Biology and the acting director and curator of mammals in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. I teach upper division and graduate courses in vertebrate biology, with strong emphasis on field observations and procedures.

My research focuses on the evolutionary dynamics of species of small mammals (primarily rodents and marsupials). I am generally interested in why there are so many species in tropical regions, and I employ a combination of field and laboratory molecular methods to address hypotheses of evolutionary diversification and speciation.

My work also involves biodiversity inventories of remote sites in tropical forested regions, primarily in South America (such as Amazonia and the forested slopes of the Andes)—information that is used increasingly in conservation and management programs.

What inspired you to do what you do?

I began my career as an anthropologist but realized in graduate school that it was the diversity of mammals other than humans and higher primates that provided greater excitement. I love the out-of-doors, and I have always been strongly motivated to experience places of this Earth where most of my fellow humans have not gone.

I also love to share my experiences with others, and that, in part, is why I teach at a major research university, where I have the opportunity to interact with some of the brightest young minds in this and other countries.

Besides your work, what interests do you have?

My position is both extremely fulfilling personally and extremely demanding. My time in the field involves coupling my great avocational interests of camping, hiking, spelunking, and so on with my personal research program, an advantage that most nine-to-five workers do not have.

What keeps you interested in your work?

The great variety of research opportunities and questions to ask and the ever changing groups of students with whom I have contact are stimulating. So is the drive to understand natural systems before they are modified irrevocably by human encroachment and to gather adequate information for the necessary management decisions for maintenance [of those natural systems].

What was your most exciting moment in the field?

One exciting moment was when we spent time in a life raft in the eastern Pacific after our research vessel caught fire and sank following three months of work in the Galápagos.

Another time, our boat hit a submerged log and sank during a year-long biological survey of the Rio Juruá in western Amazonian Brazil. I doubt, however, that this is what you mean by “exciting moment in the field!”

Perhaps it was my first trip to Amazonia, indeed to a tropical forest anywhere, when still a graduate student at the University of Arizona. All of my prior field experience had been in the desert. Experiencing a tropical forest and its incredible diversity for the first time was coupled with immediate immersion into the daily life of the Cashinahua, a monolingual aboriginal group in eastern Peru. This experience brought together my two academic passions—zoological and anthropological diversity.

The single most exciting moment, however, was probably catching the “eye shine” and then whole-body view of a jaguar in my headlight, not more than three meters [ten feet] distant, as it eyed me while I was removing a bat from a mistnet in southern Peru in 1984. The sense of awe, coupled with the realization that the thin nylon of the net didn’t provide much protection if needed, was an exhilarating feeling.

What goals have you set for yourself?

To be as good a teacher as possible, to instill my passion for science and the environment in my students. And to broaden my base of experiences of the natural world so that I can provide a greater range of experiences to my students.

How would you suggest getting started in your field?

If one is still in school, take a good natural history course that involves some hands-on experiences in the field, even if locally. Many universities offer education-abroad programs, with field courses in exotic places like Costa Rica. If one is out of school, take advantage of research expedition programs that offer hands-on opportunities as part of a research team.

What resources can you suggest to the layperson interested in your field?

All of George Schaller’s books, beginning with The Mountain Gorilla, are field biology classics. Don Stap’s A Parrot Without A Name details the work of ornithologists John O’Neill and the late Ted Parker in Amazonia. Edward O. Wilson’s autobiography Naturalist is a must. Jonathan Weiner’s The Beak of The Finch relates the long-term research of Peter and Rosemary Grant on Galápagos finches.

All of these are wonderful reads and give the true spirit of the modern field naturalist. Of course, all of the original journals of Darwin (The Voyage of the Beagle), Bates (The Naturalist on the River Amazon), or Wallace (A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro and The Malay Archipelago), are wonderful reading.

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