A study led by anthropologist Christopher I. Roos from Southern Methodist University in Dallas shows that modern “mega forest fires” in the southwestern U.S. are the result of dense canopies that likely grew as a result of human interference.

For the better part of the last half-century, the Amazonian forests have been plagued by deforestation from human farming activities.

Many of the world’s rarest and richest forests – its high-altitude cloud forests – could be all-but obliterated by 2080 due to the combined impact of man-made climate change and habitat destruction.

The city of Manila holds the human world record for the most densely populated space and now an international team of ecologists are seeking the natural equivalent, the most species rich area on earth.

After unearthing a previously unknown portion of one of the planet’s earliest known forests, archeologists say the fossils of 385-million-year-old trees reveal a far more diverse ecosystem than researchers had previously thought existed.