Is the Amazon still hurting over old extinctions?
Mineral nutrients are essential components of any ecosystem. Their absolute presence and relative representation in an environment help shape habitats and the communities that can be supported on them. These nutrients can be one of the most important limiting factors to an ecosystem's productivity. The Amazon rainforest is one of the biologically richest environments on Earth. However, its soil is relatively poor, and much of the vegetation it supports lives on other plants (e.g. see previous posts Who's who up a tree and Kingdom in the canopy ). One important limited nutrient in the Amazon Basin as a whole is phosphorous. Phosphorous (hereafter represented by its chemical symbol, P) is important for all living cells, with an active roll in energy transport and obtention in the form of ATP; as a core component of our DNA in the form of inorganic phosphate; and composing the living cell walls as phospholipids. Plants have the ability to take inorganic P from the soil and inc...