Ferns full of life

2004/07/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Ekologia

The ferns that inhabit the upper end of the trees have an enormous amount of invertebrates. A whole tree can have other living beings within it, and its contribution to the Earth biota can also be greater than expected, according to a group of scientists.

Bird nest ferns ( Asplenium nidus) and other plants that live hanging on trees are important in forest ecosystems for their water and food retention capacity.

Biologists studied the ferns that inhabit the tree trunks of the Borneo jungle. Some live 50 meters high and weigh up to 200 kilos. The study carried out the expulsion of the insecticide and the collection of insects that fell to the ground.

The comparison showed that ferns fell a hundred times more insects than trees. The results were corroborated by climbing the trees to take some ferns and finding more invertebrates than expected. In fact, with the insecticide only half were killed.