For tropical ecologist Meg Lowman, Rock-a-bye, baby, in the treetop, was much more than a lullaby. It was life.

As a single mother drawn to the mysteries of tropical rain forests and fascinated by life in the treetops, Meg Lowman has pursued a life of scientific exploration while raising her two sons, Edward and James Burgess. This often meant taking her kids to work in remote parts of the world, from Samoa and West West Africa to Panama and Peru. It’s a Jungle Up There: More Tales from the Treetops, written by Lowman in collaboration with her two sons, recounts their family adventures from the perspectives of both kids and parent. The sequel to Lowman’s acclaimed Life in the Treetops, the book is an inspiring portrayal of how a parent’s career can imprint children and how children can in turn influence the success and trajectory of their parent’s career.

Lowman and her son James were recently interviewed on NPR’s Living on Earth with Steve Curwood.

Curwood: Now, you’ve lived in rainforest canopies all over the world, right?

Lowman: That’s correct. I suppose as a young mom my biggest dilemma was, Should I leave the kids at the bottom of the tree with all the poisonous snakes, or take them into the canopy, which seemed a little dangerous? But they did like to climb, so we went from Australia to Panama and Peru, and they did in the end become my best research assistants ever.

Curwood: Now what’s the advantage for a plant biologist and entomologist–that is, someone who studies insects–to take two young boys with her into the rainforest?

Lowman: Most of my colleagues would probably tell me there’s no advantage to having children in the forest. In fact, they would look askance when I explained to them what I was doing sometimes. But in the end there were lots of great advantages, and that’s partly why I wrote about it.
For one, having a family in other countries and other cultures is a really wonderful, precious communication mode. And I did find in most other cultures they value family so highly that they were always full of trust and enthusiasm and kindness when they knew that I had brought my kids along. And secondly, the boys really do have better senses than us older people, so they could see things and hear things, and it provided me, essentially, with three man-hours of work for every one woman-hour out in the field. So in a funny way I probably got to see and measure more things than perhaps some of my counterparts.

Curwood: Now, James, what’s it like growing up with a scientist mom?

James: Well, it has some pros and cons, I guess. It was really great, you know, to be able to go to these exotic places and come back with exciting stories to tell all our friends…We had some interesting experiences. Just to be around dozens and dozens of other scientists all excitedly discussing the newest variety of mite that lives under someone’s armpit or something.

Read a review of the book in this past weekend’s Miami Herald.