bio

Canopy soil

Genuine soil accumulated on the big lateral limbs of an old tree, formed from dead epiphyte tissue and the debris they trap — material that never falls to the ground but builds up in place, decade after decade. Nalini Nadkarni's canopy work found these mats can reach some thirty centimetres deep, a hundred metres in the air, with their own nematodes, mites and invertebrate communities — and in some forests salamanders, living entire lives in dirt that has never touched the ground. The host tree sometimes grows roots out of its own branches to drink from the garden growing on it.