Some trees farm bacterias

“In acidic forest soils, availability of inorganic nutrients is a tree-growth-limiting factor. A hypothesis to explain
sustainable forest development proposes that tree roots select soil microbes involved in central biogeochemical processes,
such as mineral weathering, that may contribute to nutrient mobilization and tree nutrition,” says Stéphane Uroz, an author on the study.

Certain microbes are efficient at breaking down inorganic minerals into nutrients. This process, called mineral weathering,
is especially important in acidic forest soils where tree growth can be limited by access to these nutrients. Mineral-
weathering bacteria can release necessary nutrients such as iron from soil minerals. This gives trees with increased
concentrations of mineral-weathering microbes an advantage over other trees.

The researchers took soil samples from the root areas of beech, oak and Norway spruce trees and cultured them to determine the bacterial populations. They observed heightened levels of mineral-weathering bacteria in the samples near the roots of oak and beech trees compared to surrounding soil samples. This difference was not seen in the Norway spruce samples.

“Our results suggest that certain tree species have developed indirect strategies for mineral weathering in nutrient-poor
soils, which lie in the selection of bacterial communities with efficient mineral weathering potentials,” says Uroz.

discover channel life : insects

Argentina’s grass cutter ants use the grass they collect like a fertilizers to the fungus they grow in their colony under 15feet. They build their nest in such a way that CO2 released by those fungus is properly ventilated.

Wilson’s Phalaropes are migratory birds which likes salt/alkaline and sometimes feed on flies. These flies can only survive in such alkaline environment (found in CA U.S).

dawsons bee – biggest one in bee family – an inch long

Flowering Plants makes tropics cooler and wetter

“The vein density of leaves within the flowering plants (angiosperm) is much, much higher than all other plants,” said the study’s lead author, C. Kevin Boyce, Associate Professor in Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. “That actually matters physiologically for both taking in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for photosynthesis and also the loss of water, which is transpiration. The two necessarily go together. You can’t take in CO2 without losing water.”

This higher vein density in the leaves means that flowering plants are highly efficient at transpiring water from the soil back into the sky, where it can return to Earth as rain.

Flowering species were latecomers to the world of vascular plants, a group that includes ferns, club mosses and confers. But angiosperms now enjoy a position of world domination among plants.

Parambikulam tunnel

It is nearly a 6 KMs ride and we started moving ahead to see the tunnel in a jeep. It started to drizzle by that time. We kept on looking for bigger animals but none found till some time in the jungle.

At the end of the 6KMs ride, the dense forest road ends up in a place where we saw a big lake at one side, a bamboo forest adjacent to it and a tunnel at the east and fog covering up a mountain at the north. Mob of deer started staring at us as we were getting out of the jeep one by one. They were so ready to run and hide from us but later on they found that we are of no harm to them, so they just started gazing and moving around with one eye upon us.

This is one of the scenic place I have ever been to. It was pouring rain that moment and my friends and I were trying not to make much noise which would scare the animals. This place was so beautiful that we didnt want to leave at all even in that pouring rain.

This place was near a tunnel that goes under a mountain which connects two lakes or such water bodies. And I suppose they were built atleast 60 years before.

I regret that I didnt take a group picture with all my friends here in this place though i just clicked pictures of them individually.

If I get a chance to go there again, I would stay there for half a day atleast, just to sit and watch the big lake and the mountain slope and the fog that is covering up the whole forest.

In the right bottom corner of the picture, one can notice few deers gazing.