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posted by Fnord666 on Friday September 22 2017, @12:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the heard-good-things-about-oxygen dept.

To find out what works best for reestablishing tropical dry forests, the researchers planted seedlings of 32 native tree species in degraded soil or degraded soil amended with sand, rice hulls, rice hull ash or hydrogel (an artificial water-holding material). After two years, they found that tree species known for traits that make them drought tolerant, such as enhanced ability to use water and capture sunlight, survived better than other species. Some of the soil amendments helped get seedlings off to a good start, but by the end of the experiment there was no difference in survival with respect to soil condition.

"This study is important for a number of reasons," Powers said. "First, it demonstrates that it is possible to grow trees on extremely degraded soils, which provides hope that we can indeed restore tropical dry forests. Second, it provides a general approach to screen native tree species for restoration trails based on their functional traits, which can be applied widely across the tropics.

Is 'ecosystem restoration' the job growth area of the future?


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  • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday September 22 2017, @06:59PM (3 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 22 2017, @06:59PM (#571747) Journal

    Is 'ecosystem restoration' the job growth area of the future?

    Every time I see someone saying "Save the Trees" I can't help but think... They literally grow on trees.

    Let's "Save" something that doesn't.

    Let's work on planting trees to offset the ones we harvest, or die natural deaths? Yes, let's.

    But let's don't "Save the Trees." I firmly believe we're smarter than that.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday September 23 2017, @02:51AM (2 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday September 23 2017, @02:51AM (#571960)

    Sure, harvest the trees, but let's be a bit smarter than replanting them as monoculture row crops. Somehow it seems all "scientific and smart" to optimize financial yields by producing the most board-feet-per-acre-year of land, but that's incredibly short sighted and risky, as compared to restoration of a natural ecosystem with diversity.

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    • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Saturday September 23 2017, @11:56AM (1 child)

      by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 23 2017, @11:56AM (#572075) Journal

      Whether you are optimizing for board-feet or ecosystem restoration, you are doing some good (just to widely varying degrees). I'm old enough to remember when those ubiquitous grocery bags were made of paper, and were rectangular; no plastic grocery bags extant. But the "save the trees" contingent helped usher in the switch to plastic, thereby "saving" trees.

      My objection then as now was that trees grow back. And, in this example, petroleum for plastics doesn't.

      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday September 23 2017, @02:05PM

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday September 23 2017, @02:05PM (#572102)

        Saving the trees or not, plastic grocery bags are lighter weight, lower volume (of material, per unit grocery carried), easier to handle (they actually have handles), and they rot in the landfills just the same.

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