13-Dec-2023
How #forests smell – a risk for the climate?
New study on the link between #biodiversity and #climate
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1011057 #science #ecology #volatiles
EurekAlert!How forests smell – a risk for the climate?<p><strong>Plants emit odours for a variety of reasons, such as to communicate with each other, to deter herbivores or to respond to changing environmental conditions. An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Leipzig University, the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) carried out a study to investigate how biodiversity influences the emission of these substances. For the first time, they were able to show that species-rich forests emit less of these gases into the atmosphere than monocultures. It was previously assumed that species-rich forests release more emissions. The Leipzig team has now been able to disprove this assumption experimentally. Their study has been published in the journal "Communications Earth & Environment".</strong></p>