Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Tropical rainforests are located around and near the equator, therefore having what is called an equatorial climate characterized by three major climatic parameters: temperature, rainfall, and dry season intensity. [21] Other parameters that affect tropical rainforests are carbon dioxide concentrations, solar radiation, and nitrogen availability.
There may be many millions of species of plants, insects and microorganisms still undiscovered in tropical rainforests. 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]
The Amazon rainforest, [a] also called Amazon jungle or Amazonia, is a moist broadleaf tropical rainforest in the Amazon biome that covers most of the Amazon basin of South America. This basin encompasses 7,000,000 km 2 (2,700,000 sq mi), [ 2 ] of which 6,000,000 km 2 (2,300,000 sq mi) are covered by the rainforest . [ 3 ]
Most of the interior of the Amazon basin is covered by rainforest. [6] The dense tropical Amazon rainforest is the largest tropical rainforest in the world. [2] It covers between 5,500,000 and 6,200,000 square kilometres (2,100,000 and 2,400,000 sq mi) of the 6,700,000 to 6,900,000 square kilometres (2,600,000 to 2,700,000 sq mi) Amazon biome.
Jungle on Tioman Island, Malaysia El Yunque National Forest is the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. National Forest Service. A jungle is land covered with dense forest and tangled vegetation, usually in tropical climates. Application of the term has varied greatly during the past century.
Some leaves in tropical forests from South America to South East Asia are getting so hot they may no longer be able to photosynthesize, with big potential consequences for the world’s forests ...
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 .
Threats to the rainforests include destruction and fragmentation of forests by commercial logging, oil palm plantations, and mining. The bushmeat trade and poaching is depleting the rainforests of wildlife. [2] With annual forest loss of 0.3% during the 2000s, [5] the region had the lowest deforestation rate of any major tropical forest zone. [6]