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Tropical rainforest
- 1. TROPICAL RAINFOREST Hajer Mahmood February17 2014 Science 10 Honors Block C Mr. Horton
- 2. ABIOTIC FACTORS The tropicalrainforest is very warm and it has a wet climate. This biome is located very close to the equator and this causes little seasonal change in temperature and in the length of a day. Also it has a lot more sunlight hitting the land and sea. This helps the growth of plants that live in the Tropical Rainforest. The tall trees branches can create a canopy or shield that prevents the rain and sun from reaching the ground. The soil in the topical forest is nutrient-poor and acidic. The decomposition is very quick and soils are known for heavy leaching. The latitude is 10 ° N and 10 ° S latitude at elevations below 3,000 feet.
- 3. ANIMALS There are manydifferent animals that live in Tropical Rainforests all over the world for example in South America there are insects such as the morpho butterfly, mammals like the jaguar, birds such as hummingbirds, reptiles like snakes and fishes. In Australia, Southeast Africa, West Africa all have similar creatures as listed up above. All these animals all have different adaptions to survive in the rainforest. For example the jaguar they have jaws and a large head to pierce the skull of their prey with their canines. Their long tail help them keep their balance when they are running, making sharp turns, and climbing. There are so many other adaptions jaguars have to survive in the rainforest.
- 4. PLANTS There are somany different types of plants that live in the Tropical Rainforest for example the Coconut Tree, the Kapok Tree and many more. There is little light below the canopy so most trees do not have branches or leaves below this level. The plants the grow below the canopy, such as mosses and ferns adapt to the lack of sunlight and can grow quite well along the floor of the forest. About one quarter of all the medicines we use today come from the rainforest plants and many varieties of tropical plants are believed to be potential cures for cancer. Like animals plants also have adaptions for example the Bengal bamboo, it is extremely adapted to the climate in the biome because it requires a lot of water to survive, so the excessive rain is great. It also grows really quick, which is a good trait because as the plant grows older and bigger it requires a lot more sunlight and since the plant is growing tall it reaches more sunlight at a rapid pace.
- 5. CLIMATE The climate inthe Tropical Rainforest has an average temperature of 20-34 degrees Celsius, the annual rainfall is 250 centimeters or more and the average humidity is between 77% and 88% . In a month the rain forest gets 4 inches of rain. The tropical rainforest is different from other biomes because 50 % of the precipitation comes from its own evaporation. It rains more than ninety days a year in the rainforest, and inbetween all these rain storms, the warm sun comes out and heats up the biome. With the little sunlight they have, the warm air and lots of rain make it a great climate for trees to grow, and because of this the trees can grow large and tall.
- 7. WORLD DISTRIBUTION There are3 major tropical forests: Neotropical (Amazonia into Central America) African (Zaire Basin with an outlier in West Africa; also eastern Madagascar) Indo- Malaysian (west coast of India, Assam, southeast Asia, New Guinea and Queensland, Australia.
- 9. BIOACCUMULATION Gold, copper, diamonds,and other metals and gemstones are found in rainforests around the world. The process consists on hydraulic mining techniques, it blasts away at the river banks, clearing floodplain forests, and using heavy machinery to find the gold in the gravel. The gold is removed from this gravel by using a sluice box to separate heavier sediment and mercury for amalgamating the precious metal. While most of the mercury is removed some still ends up in rivers. There are no studies showing that there is a contamination of mercury in the Tropical Rainforest but biologist Michael Goulding says it is causing problems in these ecosystems.
- 10. INTRUSIVE SPECIES One intrusivespecie is the tropical ash tree. This tree is taller than most trees in the rainforests, therefore allowing it receive less heat from the sun. The native Hawaiian trees are rotting which is changing the rainforest in a rapid way. The tropical ash was brought into the world in 1930's as a timber species it was produced to create wood products. Sadly, it rapidly went around the tropical rainforest and it killed off many native trees.
- 11. ENERGY FLOWS The tropicalrainforest receives a lot mores sunlight and rainfall and this causes bigger, taller and stronger plants than any other biome in the world. Because these plants are so large it doesn’t allow the sunlight to reach the bottom layer of the rainforest. In the picture in the next slide it shows 100% of the rainfall reaches the rainforest, 50% of that rainfall is consumed, 25% of it evaporates, and the other 25% of it is surface runoff. This is known as the water cycle and it happens everyday and produces rainfall and water to the plants and animals that live in this biome.
- 12. ENERGY FLOWS: TROPHICLEVELS The primary producer usually are the ferns, bamboo, moss, palm trees and other vegetation. The primary consumers are the herbivores that eat all these producers. Secondary consumers, such as bats, amphibians, some reptiles and predator insects eat all the small herbivores. And finally the consumers are at the top of the food web and are the snakes and carnivorous mammals such as jaguars
- 14. BIOTIC RELATIONSHIPS Mutualism: Therelationship between the capuchin monkeys and flowering trees : when the capuchin monkey feeds on the nectar from these flowers, it creates a mess of pollen on its face, afterwards it moves to other flowers because the capuchin monkey feeds on other flowers process. In this way, the trees provide the capuchin species with food, while the capuchin monkey helps the pollination of flowers of this tree. Commensalism: The relationship between army ants and ant birds : army ants are best known for the way they take on anything that comes in their way. The antbirds, follow these ants, and eat on whatever is left behind. When the ants march they manage to shake the floor which results in insects on the floor to fly away, afterwards these insects are eaten up by the antbirds. So in conculsion the antbirds are benefited by the army ants, but the army ants do not benefit from the antbirds. Paratism: The dependence of phorid fly on leaf-cutter ants: When the leaf-cutter ants collect leaves, the phorid flies attack the leaf cutter ants, after the attack they lay their eggs in the crevices of ant's head. When the eggs hatch, the larvae feeds into the ant's body which leads to the death of the ant. So, the phorid fly benefits from the leaf-cutter ants, and the ants get the short end of the stick in this realtionship.
- 15. SUCCESSION THAT HAPPENIN THE TROPICAL RAINFOREST Primary Succession: In tropical rainforest, flooding happens quite often from the heavy rain. This strips the top layer of soil which leads to the environment must creating a new soil. Secondary Succession: Farmers in the rainforest cut down a lot of trees to grow their crops, after a couple years the soil becomes infertile. When the farmer moves, secondary succession sets in and the soil becomes fertilized, it also starts growing small plants and trees until the forest (after hundreds of years) grows back to the way it was before.
- 16. PREDATOR PREY INTERACTION Sincethere are many different plants and animals that live in this biome there are many different types of predator and prey interaction. Also there are many different adaptions animals make to capture their prey. For example herbivores walk, swim or fly up to the plants they eat on, carnivores have two options pursuit and ambush, some others use camouflage and then ambush their prey and some others use chemicals to attack their prey. An example of an interaction between predator and prey are the Anaconda and Capybara, the Capybara is a rodent that lives in/near water, the Anaconda is a water snake that can eat a single Capybara in one bite.
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