Scientists will investigate Siberian jungle plants
The staff of TSU Bio-Geo-Clim laboratory and colleagues from St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk are studying the dark coniferous taiga - a territory with amazing biodiversity, which is called the Siberian jungle. Its features are the presence of a whole complex of heat-loving relict species of flora, the gigantism of plants, and an extremely fast cycle of substances in the ecosystem. The joint research is aimed at finding out the reasons why grasses in the dark coniferous taiga grow to the size of shrubs, and shrubs, in turn, sometimes exceed the height of trees in an ordinary forest.
- The dark coniferous taiga is included in the World Wildlife Foundation's Global 200 project - a type of ranking list of ecosystems (terrestrial, freshwater, and marine) highlighting the unique regions that are most important to preserve - explains Sergey Loiko, senior researcher at the Bio-Geo-Clim laboratory. - The grass cover of the dark coniferous taiga in summer has an average height of 1.5 meters, and in some places up to two meters, and it can, for example, completely hide a person or a rider on a horse.
Read more: http://en.tsu.ru/news/scientists-will-investigate-siberian-jungle-plants/
