Community Blogs

This week’s blog comes to us from Mrs. Wafa Mubarek Bin Dayna, the Country Coordinator for the Kingdom of Bahrain.  In this post she explains a new collaborative project occurring in the Kingdom of Bahrain exploring migratory birds throughout the country.  This project was introduced in the 2011-2012 academic year and will continue for the three academic years following. In the Kingdom of Bahrain, over 290 species of birds have been observed, the majority being passing migrants.  Monitoring migratory birds isn’t always easy, as many migratory birds fly at a great ...

Most trees obtain water through their massive root systems, but did you know that some trees can absorb water through their leaves as well? This ability is called foliar uptake. Scientists recently discovered that trees in cloud forests use foliar uptake to obtain water. A cloud forest is a forest that has persistent or seasonally persistent fog or low-level cloud cover. Cloud forests are usually in the tropics or subtropics, have evergreen trees (trees that don’t lose their leaves) and tend to have a lot of mosses and vegetation in the understory of the trees. Cloud Forest ...