Re: Re(2): Scientific Point-of-View
- To: m*@ucdavis.edu
- Subject: Re: Re(2): Scientific Point-of-View
- From: J* A*
- Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1999 13:49:42 +1100 (EST)
At 17:22 21/12/99 -0800, Barry wrote:
>BTW: Aren't rainforest soils not that great either? I hear most of the
>nutrients are locked in the leaf litter on the ground and on the
>branches, and very little is in the soil itself.
Varies. This certainly tends to be the case for tropical rainforests in
year-round wet climates (much of Amazonia, I believe). However if the
rainfall is more marginal for rainforest (as it is here along the east coast
of Australia), the tendency is to have rainforests on the better soils
(basalt and other volcanics), and schlerophyll forest, or even coastal
heath, on sandstone and granite. Because they were on the best soils,
almost all our flatland rainforests in NSW and southern Queensland are gone,
the first to be cleared in the last century.
Don't know what the situation is in cool temperate rainforests (e.g.,
conifers on the NW coast of US, antarctic beech in the southern hemisphere).
John.
