What is the importance of tropical forests?

What is the importance of tropical forests?

Rainforests are often called the lungs of the planet for their role in absorbing carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, and increasing local humidity. Rainforests also stabilize climate, house incredible amounts of plants and wildlife, and produce nourishing rainfall all around the planet.

What is special about the tropical rainforest?

The tropical rainforest biome has four main characteristics: very high annual rainfall, high average temperatures, nutrient-poor soil, and high levels of biodiversity (species richness). Rainfall: The word “rainforest” implies that these are the some of the world's wettest ecosystems.

What are the important characteristics of tropical evergreen forest?

Tropical evergreen forests are dense, multi-layered, and harbour many types of plants and animals. These forests are found in the areas receiving heavy rainfall (more than 200 cm annual rainfall). They are very dense. Even the sunlight does not reach the ground.

What is the structure of the tropical rainforest?

Most rainforests are structured in four layers: emergent, canopy, understory, and forest floor. Each layer has unique characteristics based on differing levels of water, sunlight, and air circulation.

What do you understand by equatorial forests?

a natural zone of the equatorial belt, in whose natural landscapes forests predominate (seeRAIN FORESTS and GILEA). The zone encompasses primarily the lowlands on both sides of the equator, including the Amazon River basin, Equatorial Africa, the islands of the Malay Archipelago, and New Guinea.

What are the characteristics of equatorial forest?

The recurring features of rainforests are basically the following:

• high animal and vegetal biodiversity.
• evergreen trees.
• dark and sparse undergrowth interspersed with clearings.
• scanty litter (organic matter settling on the ground)
• presence of “strangler” creepers (e.g. Ficus spp.)

What type of soil is in the tropical rainforest?

Soil types Soils throughout the tropical rainforests fall into two classifications which include the ultisols and oxisols. Ultisols are known as well weathered, acidic red clay soils, deficient in major nutrients such as calcium and potassium.

What is tropical soil?

Tropical soils are formed in areas with high annual temperature and rainfall. ... The intense weathering causes these soils to be nutrient poor and low in organic matter.

What plants and animals are in the tropical rainforest?

More than half of the world's species of plants and animals are found in the rainforests. From monkeys to spiders, rainforests are teeming with life.

• Sumatran Orangutan.
• Squirrel Monkey.
• Jaguar. Sloths spend most of their time in the trees. ...
• Anaconda.
• Emerald Tree Boa Constrictor. ...
• Tarantula.
• Scorpion. ...
• Red-eyed Frog.

What plants and animals live in tropical climates?

In tropical rain forests alone, animal diversity ranks the highest in the world. A staggering number of invertebrate animal species live in tropical regions. Some of the species types include butterflies, moths, centipedes and millipedes, scorpions, spiders, ants, crustaceans, snails, slugs, worms and beetles.

What is tropical and temperate climate?

Tropical region means the region which has always the temperature 65 degree F or above. typically the location of these are close to earth's equator. In temperate region , there is variation in temperature but not extreme of cold or hot. typically the location of these are midway between equator and pole.

What are the major differences in the tropical evergreen forests and the tropical deciduous forests?

Tropical Evergreen Forests are found in the regions receiving more than 200 cm of rainfall. Tropical Deciduous Forests are found in the region having rainfall in the range of 70 cm – 200 cm. The trees of the deciduous forests shed their leaves for about six to eight months during the dry season.

Is the Amazon a tropical rainforest?

Amazon Rainforest, large tropical rainforest occupying the drainage basin of the Amazon River and its tributaries in northern South America and covering an area of 2,300,000 square miles (6,000,000 square km).