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The structure of a tropical rainforest is stratified into layers, each hosting unique ecosystems. These include the emergent layer with towering trees, the densely populated canopy layer, the understory layer rich in wildlife, and the forest floor, which is sparse due to low light penetration. The soil is characteristically nutrient-poor and ...
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]
Some tropical areas may receive abundant rain the whole year round, but others have long dry seasons which last several months and may vary in length and intensity with geographic location. These seasonal droughts have a great impact on the vegetation, such as in the Madagascar spiny forests. [1] Rainforest vegetation is categorized by five layers.
Of the ecosystems, 34 are forest areas covering 78% of the biome, 6 are Andean covering 1.5%, 5 are floodplains covering 5.83%, 5 are savanna covering 12.75% and two are tropical steppes covering 1.89%. The Brazilian Amazon holds 30 of the 53 ecosystems, of which 19 are forests with 77.5% of the area. [16]
Borneo rainforest. Some tropical forest types are difficult to categorize. While forests in temperate areas are readily categorized on the basis of tree canopy density, such schemes do not work well in tropical forests. [1] There is no single scheme that defines what a forest is, in tropical regions or elsewhere.
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.
For comparison, a tropical rainforest biome may contain thousands of tree species, but this is not to say mangrove forests lack diversity. Though the trees are few in species, the ecosystem that these trees create provides a habitat for a great variety of other species, including as many as 174 species of marine megafauna. [11]
The Hawaiian tropical rainforests are a tropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion in the Hawaiian Islands. They cover an area of 6,700 km 2 (2,600 sq mi) in the windward lowlands and montane regions of the islands. [1] Coastal mesic forests are found at elevations from sea level to 300 m (980 ft). [2]