The Effect of Cut-Down Palms on Oil Palm Yields

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In the trial, you had to cut down some of the palms to make space for these tree islands. But this loss was compensated by a gain in yields of the oil palms that were directly adjacent to the islands. So in the end, at the entire plantation or the entire landscape scale, there was no loss of oil palm yields. I mean, that to me is quite surprising that these oil palm trees were more productive when they were next to a more diverse group of trees.

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00:45 Tree islands bring biodiversity benefits for oil-palm plantation

Global demand for palm oil has resulted in huge expansion of the palm plantations needed to produce it, causing widespread tropical deforestation and species loss. To address this, researchers planted islands of native trees among the palms in a large plantation, and showed that this approach increases ecosystem health, without affecting crop yields. The team say that while protecting existing tropical rainforests should remain a priority, tree islands represent a promising way to restore ecosystems.

Research article: Zemp et al.

09:42 Research Highlights

The oldest identified ‘blueprints’ depict vast hunting traps with extraordinary precision, and fossil evidence that pliosaurs swimming the Jurassic seas may have been as big as whales.

Research Highlight: Oldest known ‘blueprints’ aided human hunters 9,000 years ago

Research Highlight: This gigantic toothy reptile terrorized the Jurassic oceans

12:08 Briefing Chat

We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, how shredded nappies could partially replace sand in construction, and how CRISPR helped crack the mystery of the death cap mushrooms’s deadly toxin.

Nature News: World’s first house made with nappy-blended concrete

Nature News: Deadly mushroom poison might now have an antidote — with help from CRISPR

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