Lianas Vines

Laina's Vines

Laina's is a type of vine that starts out as a small shrub on the ground that relies on other plants to receive a source of light. When Laina's grow they grow towards other trees and plants and use their trunks to grow upward. Because they rely on other trees for their support as they grow they develop little structure and can not support themselves. The only thing that they take from a tree is support, they can gather their own nutrient's. There are a few different ways that Laina's use in order to grow upward. Some of these ways include stem twining, grasping leaves and branches that come out of the trunk of a tree, making modifications to their leaves and branches to fit the tree on which they grow, thorns and spikes that attach the vine to the tree, downward-pointing adhesive hairs, and adhesive, adventitious roots. Once the Liana reaches the canopy layer it begins to spread from tree to tree.
There are so many Laina's in the the rain forest and so many plants and animals have developed ways to minimize their growth. Some trees will drop a limb in order to get rid of the Liana that is attached. Because of these attempts to rid Laina's from the trees the Laina's have learned to adapt for self preservation. Some ways they have adapted are to coil and bend to create a spring like shape. This will absorb the shock of the tree limbs falling on them and would help them to stay alive. Even though there are so many Laina's they are a big help to the rain forest as they suppress tree regeneration, increase tree mortality, provide a valuable food source for animals, and create a physical linking of trees, therefore providing canopy-to-canopy access for arboreal animals.
Scientist have discovered that Laina's grow 7 times faster than trees in the dry season, and only 2 times faster than trees in the wet season. If there was to be a longer dry season in the tropical rain forest then the forest would be over ridden with Laina's vines. The vines would be so numerous that the rain forest would simply be a tangle of Liana's vines. This would be bad for the animals as they would no longer be able to move around easily and so they would not be able to get the food sources they need. The animals could also get tangled up in the vines and be strangled, easy access for pray, or die of dehydration and hunger. This would also be bad for the trees and other plants as the Liana's would take most of the sunlight leaving very little for other plants of undergo photosynthesis. This would cause lack of growth in plants and trees and the rain forest would slowly shrink and simply become a pile of vines.

Alexandra Wierenga