Tropical rainforests are evergreen, hygrophilous in character, at least 30 meters high, but usually much taller, rich in thick-stemmed lianas and in woody as well as herbaceous epiphytes (Schimper 1903). Generally considered as the lungs of earth, these forests are structurally more complex and diverse terrestrial ecosystem on the earth. Vegetation formation of the tropical rain forests is often defined in terms of the structure and the physiognomy of plant components and this varies among three regions of the tropical rainforest occurred namely American or Neotropical rainforest, Eastern tropics (centered on Malay archipelago which is also known as Malesia) and Africa which centered in the Congo Basin (Whitmore 1990). The main determinant …show more content…
Apart from various forest types in Peninsular Malaysia, the following discussion will focus on the lowland dipterocarp forest where study area is located. The lowland dipterocarp forest was named after family Dipterocarpaceae which constitutes prominent elements of this forest and the members of this family, attitudinally are not found in high elevation (>1200 m). Symington (1974) wrote in his book that most of dipterocarps are predominant in lowland rain forest and occur in certain biotic and edaphic formation of limited extent. The altitudinal zonation of this forest ranges from 0 – 300 m and comprises at least three-quarters of the forest in Southeast Asia as well as 85% of the forested area in Malaysia (Manokaran 1995).
The lowland dipterocarp forest is known as most luxuriant of plant communities and amongst the finest dryland forest in the world (Whitmore 1984). The typical characteristics of this forest are having distinctive three layers of trees: emergent trees, main stratum (canopy) and smaller or shrubs trees; boles usually almost cylindrical, buttresses, cauliflory and ramiflory are common, frequently pinnate leaves, big woody climbers and broyophytes are rare (Jacobs 1988, Whitmore
Another factor is soil. The soil of a rain forest is rare and mostly acidic so plants depend on large trees falling and decomposing for their food. Also, humans moving into more deeper in forests and wild life ecosystems through expansion. Weather and tropical rainstorms could also be a limiting factor because of the intensity of the storms. Coral Reefs-
Both north and south sides of the mountain were sampled at low and high points of elevation for the amount of plant species present. Figure 1: Representation of belt transect *not scaled
The coastal temperate rainforest is a 2,500 mile long narrow rainforest that borders the west of North America. It is the largest coastal temperate rain forest in the world. It receives an annual precipitation of 33-105 inches of rain. with 350 bird and mammal species, 48 species of amphibians and reptiles, 25 tree species, hundred species of fungi and lichens, and thousand species of mites, insects, spiders, and other soil organisms the rainforest is rich in biodiversity. One of the species that lives in this habitat is the Polypodium glycyrrhia more commonly known as a licorice fern.
If the amount of grass is reduced in the ecosystem, the entire food chain will be affected greatly. Due to a smaller food source, the primary consumers, the savanna hares, will also experience a decrease in population since the new amount of grass can not sustain the initial amount of savanna hares. Since the savanna hare population decreases, the food source for the secondary consumers, the caracals, will also experience a decrease in population. The caracals do feed off of other animals, but it is likely these animals are also affected by the decrease in grass. The total food supply for the caracals decreased, so the caracals will experience a decrease in population.
1. Mann’s overall thesis is that the Native American’s way of life was very sophisticated and advanced for its time. Evidence of the Native American’s resourceful way of life is illustrated in their ability to manipulate their environment. Mann states that it is likely that the Indians shaped the land more than the Europeans have over the course of 250 years. The Indians literally created their environment through the use of fire so it would be easier to hunt for prey.
The purpose of this memo is to explain and recommend the Rainforest Connection project by Mr. Topher White Summary Climate change is the main issue right now and people never realize that deforestation take a big part in it. We always believe that transportation is the main cause of the environmental issues, but in fact, deforestation cause almost 30% more than the transportation in terms of carbon emissions. If you are looking for an environmental justice, preserving our earth, and protect our environment, we should also look to reduce the deforestation. Mr. Topher White here created a project called Rainforest Connection where we can use the used phones to fight against deforestation by alerting the forest guard if there are any suspicious voices in certain areas. The machine itself have already perfected by him, by adding few technologies such as: New model solar panel and small phone connectivity tower.
There are many characteristic that make this rainforest very distinguishing, especially things such as the rainfall and species diversity. There are a number of significant abiotic features of this rainforest are severe rainfall causing flooding, little light reaches the ground, and because it rains all year round the soil is always moist. The rainforest is known to have the biggest tropical trees, one called the Bull
10. Describe and explain the distribution of the following biomes: Tropical rainforest, monsoon rainforest, tropical savannah, desert, temperate deciduous and high altitude and latitude tundra, including
The Amazon Rain forest is losing its natural landscape more and more as the loggers who are cutting down trees and removing its importance to the world. Cattle ranchers are also a big problem to the amazon rain forest because they are removing land just for the cattle to have more space. About 20% of the world's fresh air is found coming from the Amazon Rainforest also the environmentalist are helping the Amazon a lot by letting tourist to learn about the rainforest and the donations and money they receive goes to the rain forest so they can help the amazon survive this terrible crime. The Environmentalist want to help by slowing down the clearing of the rainforest.
Imagine you are on the tropical island of San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the Caribbean. There is powdery soft golden sand where the warm jewel-colored ocean water meets the shoreline. As the waves come crashing in, you will find the seagulls taking off for flight. Off in the near distance the feathery palm trees sway in the wind, as if they are synched in motion to a song. The air is full of a fresh salty aroma and your skin feels sticky from the suns heat beaming down on you in all her glory.
Introduction: Description: Deforestation is defined as the permanent destruction of forests in order to make land available for other uses. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) 18 million acres of forest are lost each year. This equals to approximately 36 football fields of forest being cleared each minute. Though deforestation occurs all over the world, it’s the tropical forests which are being particularly targeted. Due to this countries such as Indonesia, Brazil, the Democratic republic of Congo and Thailand have a very
They contain many unique species which provide food, medicine and other biological products. Plants from tropical rainforests already provide about one-quarter of today’s pharmaceutical products. According to the National Cancer Institute, 70% of the plants useful in the treatment of cancer can only be found in the tropical rainforests. 3. Rainforests regulate the world’s climate by influencing wind,
Introduction: Biodiversity is important for all living organism including plants and animals. Without biodiversity, there would be no balance between organism and their environment. Biodiversity helps to maintain the balance of nature to sustain all life on earth; one species will not overpower another because of the effect of biodiversity. Not only does biodiversity maintain the balance of nature it is also used to indicate health in the aquatic community. Dissolved-oxygen is measured in the aquatic environment to test the health of the water.
Even so, if there are 100 million species currently in existence, we are losing between 10,000 and 100,000 each year.” No matter which numbers are accurate, mislaying of biological diversity is a very serious-minded problem - and it seems to only get worse every single day. Unfortunately, an overwhelming volume of the earth 's biological diversity is in the equator region, a field tortured by extreme poverty and thus under serious risk of species loss. Conservation International has appointed 34 distinct regions as "biodiversity hotspots," areas that grip at least 1,500 classes of vascular plants (> 0.5 percent of the world’s total) as endemics, and have lost at least 70 percent of their own habitat. These 34 hotspots fill in only 2.3 percent of the Earth 's land surface, and eventually host over 50 percent of the world’s plant classes and 42 percent of all terrestrial vertebrate classes as endemics.
Without the transpiration of trees, deforested areas become drier. Changes in weather and shelter cause deforested areas to undergo a tremendous loss of biodiversity. The scientist hasn’t even come close to testing 1% of the plants in the tropical rainforests for medicinal use, but they regularly discover species that are helpful to us the people. But, these forests and their potential benefits are looking like they may disappear by the end of this century if we don’t stop