An article focusing on the work of Miles Silman and his collaborators work on species diversity in the Amazon Rainforest was featured in UK news resource The Guardian. It references an important paper his group published in the journal, Science.
Almost four hundred billion trees belonging to 16,000 different species grow in the Amazon, according to a new estimate. More than 100 experts analysed data from 1,170 surveys to come up with the figures, highlighting the extraordinary scale and diversity of the Amazon rain forest.
The new findings, published in the journal Science, provide the first estimates of the abundance, frequency and distribution of many thousands of Amazonian trees. Extrapolating the data, compiled over 10 years, suggests that greater Amazonia harbours around 390 billion individual trees, including Brazil nut, chocolate and acai berry.
Click here to read the full article in the Guardian Online Edition.
The Amazon rainforest has vast biodiversity. Photo credit Cool Earth
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