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 53 bad epiphyllae? DHJanzen100364.jpg high resolution
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| Like most aspects of nature, they are indeed more complicated than they appear to be at first glance. While epiphyllae on a rain forest leaf unambiguously block scarce light, they also be a mixed blessing. Recent studies have shown that some of the microbes living in the microswamp of an epiphyllae-covered leaf are also fixing nitrogen, some of which finds its way into the leaf (the mechanism for how this occurs is not clear). Since fixed nitrogen can be an even scarcer resource for a tropical leaf, it may be that the old epiphyllae-covered seemingly disfunctional leaf is in fact a kind of nitrogen harvester (and recall the example of the hollow core in a tree trunk in a previous lecture, image DHJanzen100305.jpg). | ||
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