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The cloud forests of the Andes mountains, bound between the Amazonian lowlands to the west and the peaks of the Andean uplift to the east, harbor worlds upon worlds. Within the mountains' mosaic of high plateaus, deep-cut valleys and steeply climbing slopes, unique ecosystems have flourished side by side for centuries, their equilibrium protected by the rugged terrain and 12,000 years of relatively stable climate. Home to nearly one-sixth of the world's plant species, as well as hundreds of kinds of mammals, birds and amphibians, the Andean cloud forests are one of the most biologically diverse regions on Earth

Until recently, migration patterns, such as those adopted by birds all across the Amazonian rainforest, have not been thought to play an important role in the spreading of beneficial genes through a population.

From Amazonian fruit to enhanced yogurt, these foods have got the health world buzzing

By Daniel Cressey Massive Amazonian characid fish may carry seeds more than five kilometers across forest flood plains, researchers say. Although fish have long been suspected of having an important role in seed distribution, proof of their ability to carry fertile seeds such distances has been lacking. Jill Anderson, an evolutionary ecologist at Duke University in North Carolina, and her team had previously discovered thousands of seeds in the guts of Colossoma macropomum fish in Peru's Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve