[Feature] Cradle of life

Science: Current Issue
The Amazon rainforest contains 10% of the world's known species, making it one of the most biodiverse places in the world. But when, and why, did it come to be that way? Scientists agree that the Amazon's rich biodiversity was shaped by convulsive geological changes—mountains rising, coasts shifting, rivers changing course. By fragmenting and transforming habitats, these landscape changes would have driven bursts of speciation. But the experts differ, often vehemently, about just what form those upheavals took and which of them supercharged Amazonian speciation. Was it a flood of seawater invading the continent from the Caribbean? Or was it an extremely old mountain range rising along South America's west coast? As competing scientific teams descend on the Amazon in search of data, a solution to the longstanding mystery of its staggering species richness may finally be at hand. Author: Lizzie Wade
Read More...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Yu Founder On Next Flagship and Open Source Model for Upcoming Smartphones

Vivo V3Max Review

Xiaomi Mi 5 in Pictures