Plant news from Mongabay
Rainforest biodiversity results from habitat specialization rather than chance
The rich diversity of trees in tropical forests may be "the result of subtle strategies that allow each species to occupy its own ecological niche" rather than random dispersal, report researchers writing in the journal Science.
Categories: Plant news from around the world
Loss of wildlife is threatening biodiverse forests in northeastern India
Logging, agricultural expansion, and hunting of large birds and mammals in the tropical forests of northeastern India may be reducing the capacity of the biologically-rich ecosystem to regenerate itself, report researchers writing in the open-access journal Tropical Conservation Science.
Categories: Plant news from around the world
Regrowing the Amazon rainforest will require help from bats and birds
As large tracts of Amazon rainforest are degraded by industrial logging and cleared for cattle pasture and agriculture, other deforested areas are abandoned and being reclaimed by forest. Understanding this recolonization of degraded forest lands by pioneer species will critical to efforts to rehabilitate restore forests around the world.
Categories: Plant news from around the world
New tree species discovered in Amazon biodiversity hotspot
I was walking down the Anaconda Trail at the Madre Selva Biological Station with botanist Rodolfo Vasquez when he suddenly stopped, stared at the bark of a 120-foot tree, and started searching the ground. Odd behavior? Perhaps, but when you're with Peru's top field botanist, odd behavior is forgivable, since it means that something interesting is probably afoot.
Categories: Plant news from around the world
20% of the Brazilian Amazon's tree species to go extinct
A new study estimates the number of trees that will go extinct in the Brazilian Amazon due to habitat loss.
Categories: Plant news from around the world
Account of 18th century Amazon adventurer to be published for the first time
After establishing his ingenious classification system in 1735, Carl Linnaeus, the greatest naturalist of his era, sent young and eager followers to all parts of the world to help him in the goal of collecting and cataloguing the world's species. It was a project unlike any before; Swedish naturalists, often referred to as Linnaeus's apostles, roamed as far as Japan, South America, Australia, and the Arctic with the same goal in mind—describing species according to Linnaeus's system.
Categories: Plant news from around the world
