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An area of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. The tropical rainforests of South America contain the largest diversity of species on Earth. [1] [2] Tropical rainforest climate zones (Af). Tropical forests: from the UN FRA2000 report. Tropical rainforests are dense and warm rainforests with high rainfall typically found between 10° north and south ...
Tropical rainforests have been called the "jewels of the Earth" and the "world's largest pharmacy", because over one quarter of natural medicines have been discovered there. [2] Rainforests as well as endemic rainforest species are rapidly disappearing due to deforestation, the resulting habitat loss and pollution of the atmosphere. [3]
Tropical rainforest ecosystems include significant areas of biodiversity, often coupled with high species endemism. [4] Rainforests are home to half of all the living animal and plant species on the planet and roughly two-thirds of all flowering plants can be found in rainforests.
Scientists estimate that more than half of all the world's plant and animal species live in tropical rainforests. Tropical seasonal forests , also known as moist deciduous , monsoon or semi-evergreen (mixed) seasonal forests, have a monsoon or wet savannah climates (as in the Köppen climate classification ): receiving high overall rainfall ...
The roots of tropical ecology can be traced to the voyages of European naturalists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Men who might be considered early ecologists such as Alexander Von Humboldt, Thomas Belt, Henry Walter Bates, and even Charles Darwin sailed to tropical locations and wrote extensively about the exotic flora and fauna they encountered.
The plants of a layer, especially with regard to their way of life and correspondingly similar root distribution interact closely and compete strongly for space, light, water and nutrients. The stratification of a plant community is the result of long selection and adaptation processes. Through the formation of different layers a given habitat ...
The sclerophyll vegetation is the result of an adaptation of the flora to the summer dry period of a Mediterranean-type climate. Plant species with this type of adaptation tend to be evergreen with great longevity, slow growth and with no loss of leaves during the unfavorable season.
These all share a common "strangling" growth habit that is found in many tropical forest species. [1] [failed verification] This growth habit is an adaptation for growing in dark forests where the competition for light is intense. These plants are hemiepiphytes, spending the first part of their life without rooting into the ground. Their seeds ...