Tropical Rainforest Nisha Kalathara Danielle Sturdivent.

Tropical Rainforest

Nisha KalatharaDanielle Sturdivent

Global Distribution

• Four Realms– The Afrotropical Rainforest Realm• Congo (Zaire) River Basin

– The Australian Rainforest Realm– The Indomalayan Rainforest Realm– The Neotropical Rainforest Realm• Amazon River Basin

Climate

• Warm annual mean temperature • The average climate of a tropical rainforest is high

humidity due heavy rainfall• The average rainfall is 150 cm per year.• It rains about 1/8 of an inch per day and more than 90

days a year.• This biome is found near the equator, which means

that there is more direct sunlight.• The average temperature of a rain forest is about 77°

Fahrenheit and never drops below 64° Fahrenheit.

Regional Variations• The Amazon

– 1/5 of world’s plants and birds – 1/10 of world’s mammal species

• Africa– high cloud forest– mangrove swamps – flooded forests

• Southern Asia– hot and humid all year round

• Australia– Isolated – Undergrowth in Australia's tropical forests is dense and lush

Resources

• Woods • Fibers• Gums & Resins• Oils• Medicines• Many foods ( Avacado, Breadfruit, Cane

Sugar, Mayonaisse, and Passion fruit)

Changes throughout geologic time • The tropical seasonal rainforest in southern

Yunnan conspicuously decreased from a cover of 10.9% of the total area of the region in 1976 down to 3.6% in 2003, mainly due to rubber planting

• The large island of Madagascar was once intensively forested, but now much of it is gone.

Adaptations

• Plants– Dominated by broadleaf evergreen plants – Dense canopy formed by tree tops block light from reaching forest

floor– Plants on the ground level have large leaves to capture what little

sunlight filters through• Animals

– The single largest group of animals are made of insects. – Some of the insects that can be found are brightly colored

butterflies, mosquitoes, camouflaged stick insects, and huge colonies of ants.

– There is incredible biodiversity and there may be 40 to 100 different species in 2.5 acres ( 1 hectare) of a tropical rain forest.

Environmental Problems

• Farmers use most of the tropical rainforest for agricultural production.

• Damming of the tropical rivers has traditionally caused about ten percent of the total annual deforestation in the tropics.

• Deforestation and other factors like the search for minerals and oil are forcing them into a steadily decreasing area.

Bibliography• http://rainforests.mongabay.com/0101.htm• http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/rainforest.

htm• http://forestry.about.com/cs/rainforest/p/rfor

est_realms.htm• http://jrscience.wcp.muohio.edu/FieldCourse

s00/TropEcoCostaRicaArticles/Tropicalrainforest.html

• http://nhs.needham.k12.ma.us/cur/bio96_97/P3/TropicalRF/cgdb3.html

• http://www.folklife.si.edu/resources/maroon/foodways/more.htm