If you get high up almost any mountain range, both above and approaching timberline, you will notice that many of the small forbs you begin to see tend to grow very close to each other in clumps.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: This would be a cool post to submit to the Berry Go Round plant carnival. Climate changes mean that species are disappearing from European mountain regions. This allows the plants to maintain a relatively stable, warmer than average microclimate that is resistant to sudden changes in weather and temperature outside such as freezing temperatures at night or sudden storms.
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Email required Address never made public. The benefits of a cushion-like growth form at high altitudes go beyond just heat retention and wind protection — they also extend to increasing soil moisture and nutrition in the area beneath the cushion.
An example of a cushion plant with another plant species growing within it.
The Galapagos Islands, made famous by Charles Darwin, have a unique biota now highly threatened by invasive species because of increased tourism and population growth. A new study highlights the strong interaction between cushion plants and other plants in the most severe of mountain environments. These help trap water and nutrients where the plant can get at them, and the dense cover provided by the cushion drastically cuts evaporation.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Image 1: Results of these observations, described in a paper... Photo credit: An astronomer's view of aliens What do you do with the world's most powerful laser?
Cushion plants help other plants survive News: So, how are cushion plants able to increase species richness in their communities? Cushion species also tend to have very large showy flowers, often strongly smelling, for their small size, which may bloom all at once, attracting a greater number of pollinators than if they had smaller flowers or grew more sparsely.
About Me Tracey Switek lives in Salt Lake City, Utah and blogs about ecology, botany, evolution, conservation, animal behavior, and how the study of the natural world benefits us all. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Silene acaulis. Image 2: