From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Thu Feb 06 2003 - 06:18:43 MST
On Thu, Feb 06, 2003 at 01:44:12PM +1100, Russell Blackford wrote:
> IF it happened like this, what would the major tropical/equatorial
> forests of places like Brazil look like after, say, 15-30 years?
Looking at old ecological data might be helpful. Unfortunately little
is known. A popular theory seem to be that the "natural" state of the
Amazon during the last ice age was mostly a svannah, with isolated
(but still sizeable) forest refuges at the edges. However, this
picture has been challenged:
http://www.umich.edu/~newsinfo/Releases/1996/Oct96/r100296.html
So, given the current uncertainty any climate ought to be possible.
However, a darkening of the sky would likely kill off many trees. If
this was just a few months seedlings would start sprouting almost
immediately after (and during) the removal of the canopy, and they
would within a few years (if the climate remained good enough) sprout
and start to become new trees.
> Presumably they would die but a lot of the big trees would remain
> standing. What sort of new vegetation could we expect to grow in what waa
> left of these jungles?
What about this possibility: the old trees largely die, to be replaced
by opportunists and stranglers like figs. The colder climate makes
many of these fail, leaving a sparser ecosystem dominated by vertical
"weeds" that use the remains of the trees to climb and get nutrients.
The major loss of canopy would destroy many of the ecological niches
for the cool unique animals, but seed-gathering birds, ants,
wood-eating insects and the animals that prey on them would certainly
remain.
I think you have a fairly broad range of possibilities to play with
here; you can fit the forest environment to the scenario you are
setting up.
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