Post by bhushraislam145 on Mar 8, 2024 22:27:26 GMT -7
Mass extinctions will open ecological niches and environmental changes will create new ones. New creatures will evolve to fill them, guided by unforeseen selection pressures. However, exactly what this new world will look like is impossible to predict and humans are not guaranteed to survive in it. However, a series of experiments carried out in recent years offer a glimpse of this future that is approaching and is by no means an end.
A known fact is the adaptability of nature itself; But, in the case of climate change, this is one of the main concerns for all of humanity due to the capacity it has to unleash sudden alterations that will cause the death of many species of animals and plants in a shorter period than usual. However, with regard to tropical forests, interesting situations may arise that are somewhat removed from the fatalism that characterizes the estimates that have been made recently.
Of course climate changes will affect the tropical forests that currently exist. In fact, it is already affecting them. Likewise, it does not mean that humans should stop worrying about global warming. It is a fact that climate change will be the “end of the world”, but only of the one we know, since it will also be the beginning of another.
A few years ago in Panama, Klaus Winter, a plant physiologist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, planted seedlings of 10 species of tropical trees in small geodesic greenhouses. Some were allowed to grow in the type of environment to which they were accustomed (around 26 degrees Celsius), while others were subjected to uncomfortably high temperatures ranging from 35 to a maximum of 38 degrees Celsius, an unusual temperature. in tropical latitudes but that will be an everyday occurrence by the end of this century in these regions of the world, Wired published.
However, the finding was surprising in terms of predictions, particularly those that indicate that the future of lungs like the Amazon is desert.
Thus, the vast majority of the plants Winter planted did not die. In fact, most thrived in temperatures significantly warmer than they experience today. Likewise, only two species succumbed to heat and only at the highest Europe Cell Phone Number List temperatures. The trees' success echoes paleontological data that hints that warmer temperatures may be a boon for tropical forests. After all, the last time Earth experienced average temperatures of 35, there were rainforests in Michigan and palm trees in the Arctic.
Winter's data hint at a change in forest structure. The three species that best adapted to the high temperature regime were Adenanthera Pavonina , a species of fig called Ficus insipida , and Ochroma pyramidale , also known as raft. Each of them is what Winter calls a “pioneer species,” fast-growing trees that can move into cleared areas to take over. The clear example of this is the case of F. insipida , which is capable of climbing trees as a vine and eventually strangles them.
These types of species are vital to a healthy rainforest, helping it to regenerate after destructive events such as a flood or the death and collapse of a large tree. However, a mature forest also needs the species that appear after this. These tend to be larger and longer-lived, and stabilize the forest by serving as ecological hubs for animals and the rest of the ecosystem for decades or even centuries. However, it was precisely those so-called “climax species” that suffered the most under the highest temperatures in Winter's experiments.
The above only means that as climax species die due to warm climates, they will not be replaced.
“One would hope that future tropical futures would be dominated by agile species that can disperse very well,” Lewis says. Pioneer trees that take root anywhere, vines that grow in every corner, small rodents that reproduce quickly, birds that can fly over vast expanses of land and are not too picky about where they nest. However, this is just a small subset of the thousands of species found in today's tropical forests. Without the rest, the jungle will be a much simpler place.