Science Stats Ecosystems

Just 1 percent of Amazon’s trees hold half of its carbon

Big, abundant species outweigh their neighbors when it comes to keeping greenhouse gases out of the air

Amazon rainforest

THE 1 PERCENT  The trees of the Amazon rainforest hold a lot of carbon, but around half of the rainforest’s carbon storage is wrapped up in just 1 percent of its tree species.

Andreas Kay/Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

By Thomas Sumner

- More than 2 years ago

The Amazon rainforest holds more carbon than any other ecosystem, but only a handful of tree species do most of the work of keeping carbon out of the air.