environmentalist seek to help rainforests recover from human end or rude catastrophe may have been bark up the amiss Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree . Instead of serve the residue of the forest regenerate , as had been assume , atomic number 7 - make trees impede the growth of other species , at least in Costa Rica .
Plants can not grow without atomic number 7 . but most ca n’t make use of the molecular N in the air , so they depend on others to “ fix ” it into a form they can integrate . Consequently , atomic number 7 - fixer are essential to enriching and restoring ecosystem , as seen in theuse of peasto restore depleted soils for straw or oats .
“ Symbiotic atomic number 7 - situate Tree are thought to provide much of the nitrogen required to fire tropical secondary regrowth and therefore to repel the pace of forest regeneration,”Benton Taylor , a Ph.D. student at Columbia University , writes in theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . However , when Taylor endeavor to measure these trees ' benefits he found the accurate opposite .
Nitrogen fixers make up about 10 pct of the trees in Central and South America , even though they are just 1 pct in Canada and the northern USA . Taylor studied a data set , pull together over 17 consecutive long time , look at eight patches of high rain rainforest in Costa Rica , both old growth and areas at various stage of regeneration . This cater measures of the shock of N fixers across 1 - hectare ( 2.5 acres ) plots , and on a much smaller scale .
Both locally and across full plots , expanse with more atomic number 7 - fixers live dim overall growth . The design hold in both raw and old forests . Where N - repairer took up 35 percent of the area , they were able to shut out non - fixer maturation down almost entirely . Taylor and his Colorado - authors assign the gist to the heavy need nitrogen - methadon have for water and other grunge nutrients , and the shade they throw on other works .
Technically , no tree actually fixes nitrogen itself . Rather the trees dubbed " N - fixers " shape symbiotic relationship with microorganisms , usually rhizobia bacteria , that gear up the N for them . Nevertheless , the issue is the same : trees that have this mental ability enriching the soil around them with nitrogen , where it can be taken up by other plants .
Something so unexpected is always interesting , but the findings also have very of import implication . So much rain forest has recently been destroyed by human hands that nonplus the planet back to health will require extensive restoration . For both a inhabitable mood , and the preservation of biological diversity , this will imply planting groundbreaker trees that can allow healthy forests to grow around them . We could easily assume nitrogen - fixer should be the first degree , but Taylor ’s oeuvre indicate this should be done with large charge , and other ecosystem need to be checked in similar elbow room .
