Forests flanking Brazil’s rivers act as “highways” that have allowed tree species to move between the Amazon and Atlantic rainforests for millions of years, new research shows.
Forests flanking Brazil’s rivers act as “highways” that have allowed tree species to move between the Amazon and Atlantic rainforests for millions of years, new research shows.
The two rainforests are separated by hundreds of miles of dry forest and savanna, where most rainforest trees cannot survive.
Until now, it was thought that tree species only passed between the Amazon and the Atlantic forests during periods long ago when the climate was wetter and much of South America was covered in rainforest.
But the new study – led by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) and the University of Exeter – reveals a different story.
Read More: University of Exeter
An Inga tree (I. affinis) growing alongside a river in the Cerrado savanna region of central Brazil. (Photo Credit: RT Pennington)
