"The team ... planted and tracked three U.S. orchid species -- all present in the East and endangered somewhere in the country -- in six study sites: three in younger forests, which were 50 to 70 years old, and three in older forests, which were 120 to 150 years old .... Older forests, McCormick and her colleages found, had about five to 12 times more orchid-friendly fungi than younger forests, and the fungi in older forests were more diverse."
-- Carrie Madren for Scientific American on Melissa McCormick's Smithsonian Environmental Research Center team, whose work has helped to demonstrate that, even on a microscopic level, old-growth forests are a superior habitat for preserving native endangered species.
Learn more about the experiment here.
Source: Madren, C. (2012, April). Picky eaters club: Fungi that orchids need to grow are just as finicky as the exotic flowers themselves. Scientific American, 306, p. 16.
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