Tropical Montane Cloud Forests

New research shows that certain trees have other ways of taking in water. In Tropical Montane Cloud Forests, the trees and plants are constantly immersed in clouds, which creates a unique, cool, and wet climate for the plants and animals that live there. The trees and plants absorb water through their leaves, and pass it down through their branches, and into the trunk. This is opposite compared to other trees that absorb water through their roots and pass it to their leaves. To discover this information, researchers placed sensors on the branches of plants to see if water was absorbed through wet leaves, which was confirmed to be true. These tropical montane cloud forests are extremely rare, about 0.26% of the planet's entire land surface, and can be found in South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean. The Cloud Forests also have high rates of endemism, which means they have species that do not occur anywhere else. Unfortunately, tropical montane cloud forests are threatened by several pressures, such as trees being cut down, climate change, and tourism. If temperatures increase in these cloud forests, the cloud cover could change, and lead to changes and extinctions to rare birds, frogs, and salamander populations. Also, the trees and plants will suffer due to rising temperatures and cloud changes because the clouds are vital to their water absorption.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121213104228.htm
http://www.canopyintheclouds.com/learn/