Palm trees are more than five times more numerous in tropical forests in the Americas than in comparable Asian and African forests, a new study shows.
Many palms were already known to prefer land with a good groundwater supply, and the new study confirms that palm trees are more plentiful in wetter areas with less fertile soils and shallower groundwater.
Characteristics of palm trees differ from those of other tropical trees in many ways. The new study, led by Uppsala University (Sweden) and University of Campinas (Brazil), surveyed the numbers of palms in tropical rainforests around the globe.
The proportion of palm trees is important to include in calculations of forests’ potential carbon storage and in estimates of forested areas’ sensitivity to climate change.
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