Word: flora
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Scientists have been developing the physical plant of Biosphere II for six years, using techniques that have enabled modern zoos and botanical gardens to put diverse habitats together in relatively narrow confines. At the same time, they have searched the world for representative flora and fauna that can re- create five different miniature biomes, or ecosystems: rain forest, savanna, desert, ocean and marsh...
...company's emphasis on environment reflects MacCready's most passionate concern. "My goal," he says, "is to have mankind reach a comfortable accommodation with the flora, fauna and resources of the earth. And that requires equilibrium after a while, not population increase, not consumption of irreplaceable resources, and certainly not wiping out all the flora and fauna as we are now doing...
Meier hopes his find will call attention to Madagascar's diverse but vanishing flora and fauna. One-quarter of Africa's plants exist only on Madagascar; more than 90% of the island's wildlife is unique. Agriculture has wiped out most of the forests and many animal species, including 14 types of lemur. Undiscovered species may lurk in the remaining jungle, but, warns Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, "unless their habitat is protected, they may all isappear...
...Amazon is more than just good material for TV specials. The rain forest is a virtually untapped storehouse of evolutionary achievement that will prove increasingly valuable to mankind as it yields its secrets. Agronomists see the forest as a cornucopia of undiscovered food sources, and chemists scour the flora and fauna for compounds with seemingly magical properties. For instance, the piquia tree produces a compound that appears to be toxic to leaf-cutter ants, which cause millions of dollars of damage each year to South American agriculture. Such chemicals promise attractive alternatives to dangerous synthetic pesticides. Other jungle chemicals have...
...ever deepening ruts that erode into gullies. And oily wastes have leached out of supposedly secure dumps. The consequences of the contamination are unclear, but some scientists believe that since the permafrost confines biological activity to a layer of ^ earth just a couple of feet thick, and because its flora is so fragile, small spills can have large effects...