Barro Colorado Island (BCI) in central Panama was created when the surrounding forest was flooded in 1914 to create the Panama Canal. The island became a reserve in 1923 and its 15 km² of tropical forest have been the subject of intensive study ever since. To commemorate 100 years of research on the island, Helene Muller-Landau and Joe Wright, of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, have edited a new two-volume book titled “The First 100 Years of Research on Barro Colorado: Plant and Ecosystem Science“. Ryan has contributed a chapter to this book titled “The Forests of Barro Colorado Island the Neutral Theory of Biodiversity“, which chronicles the history of the neutral theory of biodiversity and how this history has been interwoven with field research at BCI.