High-tech canopy maps reveal how tropical birds use Amazon forests

Tropical forests may look like a uniform sea of green from above, but new research shows that carefully measured differences in forest structure and function can help explain how birds use existing habitats, how they respond to threats and which communities may be most at risk as forests change.Using aircraft-mounted sensors, researchers mapped chemical and structural differences in forest canopies across Peru. They then compared those forest types with the ranges and traits of more than 1,300 forest-dependent bird species.