Drought Resistance Is Key To Plants In Tropical Forests

CLIMATE SCIENCE

In tropical rainforests where global warming lengthens the dry season and where human development has already fragmented forest lands, the outcome could be "loss of diversity and perhaps species extinction," said University of Utah biologist Tom Kursar.

by Staff Writers
Paris (AFP) May 02, 2007
Sensitivity to water is a major factor in determining which plant species succeed in tropical habitats, a finding that suggests climate change could reshape rainforest diversity, a study says. Biologists led by Bettina Engelbrecht of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama looked at the distribution of 48 species of trees and shrubs, growing in study plots on the Panamanian isthmus.

The 122 plots ranged from damp Caribbean to dry Pacific slopes.

Where trees and shrubs grew depended crucially on how resistant they were to drought during the local dry season, they found.

Rainforests are commonly thought of as saturated places, but the true picture is complex.

Even though temperatures are relatively stable in tropical regions, water availability and local soil moisture can vary a lot and over small distances.

These differences are expected to amplify under global warming, which will change rainfall patterns and the duration of rainy seasons, making some places wetter and other places drier.

"Our research shows that changes in rainfall patterns will have considerable consequences for tropical forests," said co-author Ben Turner in a press release.

The study appears on Thursday in the British journal Nature.

Source: Agence France-Presse

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CLIMATE SCIENCE

China, India, Brazil Hold Up Climate Change Talks

Bangkok (AFP) May 02, 2007
A demand by China, India and Brazil that rich nations accept they are mainly responsible for global warming has held up progress at a key UN climate change conference here, delegates said Wednesday. The three nations' insistence since the talks started on Monday that the developed world recognise their dominant role in climate change has stolen precious time meant for debate on how best to tackle global warming, they said.

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