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Researchers are inducing a drought in an Australian rainforest to study its effects

Susan Laurance and colleagues at James Cook University in Australia wanted to study how different groups of plants in tropical forests are affected by drought.

So a few months ago, the researchers used 3,000 clear plastic panels to create what they call a “raincoat for a rainforest,” artificially inducing a drought in several thousand square meters of the Daintree Rainforest on the northeast coast of Queensland.

The drought experiment allows the team to study a wide range of plant life, from trees and vines to shrubs and epiphytes, in order to determine which are most vulnerable, Laurance says.

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