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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.
Distribution of tropical wet forests. Tropical plants and animals are those species native to the tropics. Tropical ecosystems may consist of tropical rainforests, seasonal tropical forests, dry (often deciduous) forests, spiny forests, deserts, savannahs, grasslands and other habitat types.
However, tropical forests are extensive, making up just under half the world's forests. [3] The tropical domain has the largest proportion of the world's forests (45 percent), followed by the boreal, temperate and subtropical domains. [4] More than 3.6 million hectares of virgin tropical forest was lost in 2018. [5] [6]
An ecosystem (or ecological system) is a system formed by organisms in interaction with their environment. [2]: 458 The biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Ecosystems are controlled by external and internal factors.
Tropical rainforests provide timber as well as animal products such as meat and hides. Rainforests also have value as tourism destinations and for the ecosystem services provided. Many foods originally came from tropical forests, and are still mostly grown on plantations in regions that were formerly primary forest. [39]
Tropical rainforests are among the most threatened ecosystems globally due to large-scale fragmentation as a result of human activity. Habitat fragmentation caused by geological processes such as volcanism and climate change occurred in the past, and have been identified as important drivers of speciation. [ 10 ]
According to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dan Kottlowski, 85% of all tropical storm development can trace its origins to tropical waves. AccuWeather meteorologists are constantly monitoring ...
The origins of tropical geography can be traced back to as early as the fifteenth century when Columbus first discovered the Caribbean islands in tropical America. Subsequent writings of European explorers, merchants, naturalists, colonists and settlers who traveled to and lived in the tropics were the main sources of the study.