Princeton-led team finds secret ingredient for the health of
tropical rainforests Posted December 9, 2008; 09:00 a.m. A team
of researchers led by Princeton University scientists has found
for the first time that tropical rainforests, a vital part of
the Earth's ecosystem, rely on the rare trace element molybdenum
to capture the nitrogen fertilizer needed to support their
wildly productive growth. Most of the nitrogen that supports the
rapid, lush growth of rainforests comes from tiny bacteria that
can turn nitrogen in the air into fertilizer in the soil. Until
now, scientists had thought that phosphorus was the key element
supporting the prodigious expansion of rainforests, according to
Lars Hedin, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at
Princeton University who led the research. But an experiment
testing the effects of various elements on test plots in lowland
rainforests on the Gigante Peninsula in the Barro Colorado
Nature Monument in Panama showed that areas treated with
molybdenum withdrew mo