A new study investigates the survival of seedlings in the tropical rainforest. Photo by Thomas Hesselberg.

One of the most striking differences between walking in a temperate and in a tropical forest is the much higher plant diversity in the latter. Whereas a typical temperate forest contains perhaps a few dozen different tree species at the maximum, a tropical forest can sustain up several hundred different species. However, how do the individual seed and seedlings from so many species manage to survive and thrive in the highly competitive environment of the rainforest? Of course the obvious answer is that most seeds do not survive, but some obviously do or the diversity would not be maintained. The botanists Alvares-Clare and Kitajima from the University of Florida have in a new study examined seed survival from a Tropical forest in Panama.

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Birds cannot adequately track the climate change. Here the wren (Troglodytes troglodytes). Photo by Robert Lorch - Wikimedia Commons.

In the past year it has become evident that the current degree of climate change is having a significant impact on species composition and distribution for many taxonomic groups and in many different habitats world wide. One of the best studied groups in this respect is the birds, where several studies show that climate change results in changes of behaviour and distribution as well as changes in time of egg-laying and migration.

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Waterbucks in Botswana. Courtesy Forschungsnachrichten.de

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Climate could change dramatically in the near future (courtesy. photocase.com)

Climate change is happening, now and during the last century. Scientists from the university of Bern, Switzerland, now published new data about the speed of anthropogenic climate change. They compared CO₂, N₂0 and CH₄ (the most important gases responsible for greenhouse effect) over a period of the last 20.000 years. They used antarctic ice cores containing air locks of the monitored period. The investigation showed that the slopes of the global warming gases never before were so alarming high in the last 16.000 years as during the 20th century.

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