Ultramafic Soils - aka Serpentine Soils - are soils created from the weathering of ultramafic rocks that are high in iron & magnesium and low in essential plant nutrients like nitrogen & calcium.
Longtime watchers of this channel have likely heard the rants about geology & plant speciation and will already be familiar with how this rock type and geology influences plant evolution in places like California and New Caledonia for instance. What many people don't know is that the island of Tasmania has its own exposures of serpentine soil in the western half of the island, and on these soils - as there tend be on this kind of geology - there are plants that evolved a tolerance to this toxic kind of geology and have become adapted to it.
Plant species like Viola serpentinicola (Violaceae) & Micrantheum serpentinum (Picrodendraceae) are Tasmanian Serpentine Endemics, while other plants like Banksia marginata and Drosera auriculata - having already been adapted to nutrient poor soils - are also able to tolerate the serpentine.
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26 авг 2024
