The remarkable ability to survive lightning strikes and benefit from the removal of lianas and competitors gives Dipteryx trees a major advantage over other trees. According to the scientists’ calculations, lightning tolerance boosts the species’ ability to produce offspring by 14 times.
I love this. It is like reef fish cleaning other bigger fish.
Way up in the cloud forests of the Eastern Sierra Madre, Mexican Beech (Fagus mexicana) grow in a few locations among other species as magnolias, sweetgums, oaks and pines. Finally I had a chance to visit one of those magnificent forests and met the big trees, one of them measuring around 55 meters tall. It is an endangered species as few of their forests survive and always has been a scarce species in central Mexico. Roberto Pedraza Ruiz
It is not well known that the high elevation forests in the Eastern Sierra Madre hold glacial relict northern analogues that were trapped there and adapted. It would be great to see them.
Lots more on this podcast.