Tropical rainforest research was long the preserve of rich white men and the resulting literature was the same. This early bias in tropical research and publication may still be reflected in reading lists and recommended sources in higher education. We report on a study analysing the authorship of papers in the final year undergraduate option “Tropical Ecology” in SBOHVM University of Glasgow. The methodology utilised was that proposed by Bird and Pitman (2019) identifying gender, geography, and ethnicity of the authors. Nearly 79% of authors were male; 93.8% of authors whose ethnicity was identified were from non-BAME backgrounds; 80% of the authors were affiliated to institutes or universities in the global north. These results were reported to staff on the course with two outputs so far: reconsideration of the reading list and replacement of sources where possible; tutorial and discussion sessions with students taking the course to address the issues.