Celebrating Plants and People
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Siamese Rosewood: Loved Into Extinction?
Siamese rosewood from the Mekong region is nearing extinction as the demand in China for luxury reproduction wooden furniture soars. As the timber becomes scarcer, the price is increasing. Investors are pouring money into the business, making the problem even worse.
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Birds’ Migration Revealed In Pollen Stains
The findings may help protect threatened songbirds; they suggest that commercial and garden tree species may be more important as a food source for migrating birds than previously suspected.
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Birds Pollinate Plants For 47million Years
If a pollinating bird lived as much as 47 million years ago, it must be assumed that some representatives of the flora at that time had already adapted to this mode of pollination
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When Birds Disappear, Plants Are Next To Go
Many plants rely on birds to pollinate them and disperse their seeds, so it seems reasonable to assume that if the bird population falls, this will have a knock-on effect on plant species. Now the effect has been seen in a shrub, following the extinction of two birds – the bellbird (Anthornis melanura) and stitchbird (Notiomystis cincta) – on New Zealand’s North Island after rats were introduced there in the 1870s.
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Floral Biodiversity Crucial To Moderating Climate Change
Preserving diverse plant life will be crucial to buffer the negative effects of climate change and desertification in in the world’s drylands, according to a new landmark study.
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Reduce Malaria Threat By Preserving Forest Biodiversity
Contrary to what has long been believed, forest conservation and malaria control are not incompatible, and biodiversity issues should be included in the World Health Organization Malaria Eradication Research Agenda in order to achieve the desirable goals of biological conservation and maintenance of low malaria endemicity.
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Deer Damage Reduced In Diverse Forests
In deer-populated forests, tastier plants can avoid being eaten if they are surrounded by less appealing plants. But with deer gone, diverse plots become weaker as plant survival drops.
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How Do Pandas Exist On Only Bamboo?
Giant pandas (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) are a type of bear, and they still retain a meat eater’s digestive system, with a simple stomach and a short small intestine. They don’t have a four-chambered stomach like a cow to digest plants efficiently, and a pure bamboo diet contains hardly any protein and a lot of indigestible fiber.
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That After Rain Smell? It’s Nature Talking To Plants
When it’s not raining, though, that molecular mixture serves a different purpose: signaling plants to keep their roots from growing and their seeds from sprouting. No use wasting energy on all that, after all, when there’s no water to be drunk.
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Bats and Birds Aid Tropical Reforestation Programs
With half of the tropical rainforest biome cleared at least once in the last 100 years, forest conservation and restoration using birds and mammals that transport seeds should become a central theme in ecology of this century.