Diverse rainforests stay healthy during droughts
Despite a 40-year drought, forest carbon stocks in protected West African rainforests increased, thanks to a dramatic shift to trees better adapted to dry conditions.
“Short-term droughts cause high tree mortality and declines in forest carbon storage, but our results show that in response to longer-term droughts tropical forests can change their species composition, and maintain their overall forest carbon stocks,” says Sophie Fauset, a researcher from the School of Geography at the University of Leeds.
Full story at Futurity.
Photo credit: Greg Neate/Flickr
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