National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Photo: First Evidence That Wildlife Corridors Boost Biodiversity, Study Says


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Wildflowers known as lady lupine grow along the pine needle covered forest floor of an experimental patch of land in South Carolina.

Over a five-year period plant diversity was found to be 20 percent higher in patches of land connected by corridors than in neighboring but isolated patches, researchers report. The finding offers proof of the widely used but still controversial theory that conservation corridors help biodiversity.

Photograph courtesy of Ellen Damschen/ Science