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Pattern found in world’s rainforests where 2% of species make up 50% of trees
(www.theguardian.com)
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Led by University College London researchers and published in the Nature journal, the international collaboration of 356 scientists uncovered almost identical patterns of tree diversity across the world’s rainforests, which are the most biodiverse places on the planet.
If we focus on understanding the commonest tree species, we can probably predict how the whole forest will respond to today’s rapid environmental changes,” said the lead author, Declan Cooper, from the UCL centre for biodiversity and environment research.
The team of scientists demonstrated that while African tropical forests have fewer total species compared with the Amazon and south-east Asia, their diversity follows the same pattern.
They plan to focus future work on identifying the potential rule, given the geographic differences of the forests they studied.
African tropical forests experience a drier, cooler climate than the two other regions, while those in south-east Asia are spread across disconnected islands.
The senior author, Prof Simon Lewis of UCL’s geography school and the University of Leeds, said: “We wanted to look at tropical forests in a new way.
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