Ecosystems Assessment Revision Flashcards
(37 cards)
What is an Ecosystem?
The definition of an Ecosystem is the study of the environment where living things in it interact between each other and also with the non-living environment they are found within.
Where are the World’s Tropical Rainforests?
The vast majority of the world’s tropical rainforests are found near or on the equator, with nearly every single one of them between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. This is because these rainforests need warm and humid climates to be able to grow in. Another noticeable trend is that most of them are close to a large body of water, which is evaporated and turned to rain, which gives the rainforest the water it needs.The only anomalie is the southern tip of the Madagascar Rainforest, which slightly pokes out of the bottom line of the tropic of Capricorn.
Why does that rainforest have such a high level of Biodiversity?
There are many reasons why the rainforest accommodates around 50% of the globe’s biodiversity, whilst only cover 2% of the Earth’s land. They can include:
- It’s conditions are primed to accommodate many different types of plant and animal species, naturally meaning that there will be more variation, resulting in higher biodiversity (temperatures around 27°-30° and up to 2m of rainfall per year).
- Organisms grow, die and decompose very quickly, meaning new life is also formed quickly, creating competition between species right from the start, meaning higher biodiversity. This can also provide a stable and reliable habitat for longer living species too.
- There is no need for plants and animals to adapt, as there are no new seasons, meaning their habits are the same all year round, making their life easier.
- There is lots of bacteria in the soil, along with good decomposers, giving nutrients to the soil for the animals and plants to feed off.
Why does Vegetation adapt to the Rainforest Climate
Animals and vegetation also have to adapt to survive in the rainforest for different reasons and in different ways. This then gets them the upper hand over competing species and helps them to survive in the rainforest for as long as possible too. Examples of Tropical Rainforest Adaptations are Epiphytes, Lianas, Buttress Roots, Emergents (Trees), Drip Tip Leaves, The Canopy Layer, Shrubs and Dark Forest Floor Leaves
Adaptations: Epiphytes
- Reach the sunlight quickly and do so with competition
- They are non parasitic, so they get their nutrients from their air (water vapour) and pools of water where dead organic material is rotting down
Adaptations: Lianas
- Some are also known as vines, and are extremely quick growing, meaning they can get up to reach the sunlight quick enough
- They do not use their energy to grow in girth (width), but use their energy to grow in length and to grow upwards to the light. They can do this, as they are reliant on the tree that they are growing up for support
Adaptations: Buttress Root
- Buttress Roots combat the infertile soil that lays below the tree, as most of the nutrients gets leached out due the extortionate amount of rainfall in this biome.
- To combat this, the Buttress Roots are higher up the tree, so they’re able to have shallower roots, meaning their closer to the surface where all the decomposers and bacteria are, so they can get the nutrients in that way
- They are also up to 10 meters wide, meaning the tree is still fully supported, especially if it is a tall one.
Adaptations: Emergents (Trees)
- Emergents are adapted so they can reach right up, all the way through the dense canopy to get light. As a result, these giants can reach up to 65 meters tall
- These trees are slow growing, but ultimately in the end, are able to reach to the top of the rainforest, especially if it is a hardwood.
Adaptations: Drip Tip Leaves
- Drip Tip leaves are designed so that they have a drip tip at the end of the leaf, helping it to drain water off it’s waxy cuticle, allowing to photosynthesise better
- Due to the annual average of 2m of rainfall, this amount, if water was to stay on the leaf, would make it grow mouldy, meaning it would decompose and die.
- Another thing that helps the drip tip, is that it’s leaf it pointed down, meaning water will drain down onto the soil and probably then into it’s own plant’s roots, where it can be sent back up to the leaf to grow
Adaptations: The Canopy Layer
- The canopy is adapted to get the trees away from the waterlogged conditions on the deep and murky forest floor.
- It reaches up to 30m-40m high and then is able to absorb any kind of sunlight, which would be impossible to do on the forest floor.
- This dense batch of trees also avoid the competition for space, although they compete with each other, on the forest floor, where things are a lot more intense
Adaptations: Minimal Shrub Growth
- There is minimal shrub growth in the rainforest, due to the amount of space there is available.
- They grow with waxy and jagged leaves, to put up a defence to animals trying to consume them
- Some are carnivorous plants or are insectivorous, meaning that they can eat small insects of animals, as this will help replace the lack of nutrients found on the forest floor
Adaptations: Dark, Large Leaves on Forest Floor
- This means that these leaves will have a lot more chlorophyll in them, as they are a darker shade of green, allowing them to convert any light that reaches them into sufficient amounts of energy.
- This is what will keep these plants alive, as only 2% of sunlight manages to reach the forest floor, which is very precious
Animal Adaptations:
Some of them include:
- Big Feet (stops them sinking into the ground)
- Height (Can reach food on higher branches and higher trees where there is less competition)
- Darker Skin (Protects their skin from the hot and harmful sun)
- Camouflage (Can hide and blend in with their surroundings from predators)
- Sight (Spots predators and prey in dense vegetation)
- Ears (Can listen for predators and prey in noisy surroundings)
- Long Tail (Helps animals scale and climb, or even swing from trees)
- Waterproof feather/fur (stops animal from getting wet)
- Claws/Long Fingers (good for climbing and gripping, as well as hunting and defending)
- Wings (So the animal can reach food up really high)
- Tough Skin (stops the animal from getting pierced by thorns)
- Long Arms (to wrap around trees)
Why is the Rainforest So Valuable?
- 75% of cancer treatment comes from the rainforest (Periwinkle - Child Leukaemia; Digtalis - Heart Failure; Chinchina Tree- Heart Problems)
- 150 prescription drugs in the UK originate in some way from the TRF
- 50% of Ghana’s forest has been cut for Ghana’s cocoa cash crop
- Cattle Ranching (S. America) is responsible for 80% of deforestation where fields are created to rear cattle
- 50% of all packaged supermarket products have palm oil in them, as rainforest is deforested for their plantations
Who uses the Rainforests?
Really, almost everyone in the world uses the rainforest in one way or another, in the fact that they have either visited there or bought products from there. As a result of too many people using the rainforest, deforestation is becoming a larger and larger problem.
Some examples of people using the rainforests are: The Indigenous Tribes, Slash and Burn Farmers, Exports and TNC’s and the Growing Population and Global and Demand.
How the Indigenous Tribes use the rainforest
- Houses are made out of rainforest resources such as wood and leaves
- They hunt their food in the rainforest, like moneys and antelopes for meat, with fish from the rivers and they gather yams, nuts and berries, as well as plants for medicine
- They hunt giant forest hog and sell it to other people in the region for items and utensils
- They worship the forest and think of it as sacred and call it father of mother, whilst making sacrifices and offering for protection
How the Slash and Burn Farmers use the rainforest
- This tactic of farming is still used by over 500 million landless farmers around the world
- The farmers clear small areas by cutting and burning trees, making sure the ash from the burning adds nutrients to the soil
- They plant crops and farm food for around 5 years before it becomes infertile and then they move onto a new area, and the forest then starts to regenerate
Problems with this are that there are too many farmers doing this (as poverty rises) and each of them are taking more land than they are meant to, resulting in more land being lost.
How the Commercial Exports and TNC’s use the rainforest (Commercial Exploitation)
-Commercial Businesses clear large areas of rainforest for:
>Commercial Farming for Beef or to grow fodder crops for the cattle
>Commercial Crops such as Palm Oil or Cocoa
>Mining metal ores (copper and iron)
>Farm timber for paper and furniture e.c.t
>Dams and Reservoirs for renewable and energy and profit
- This can range differently around the world. For example Cattle Ranching and Subsistence Farming account for 60% and 30% of the Amazon’s rainforest loss, whereas in Borneo and Indonesia, large Palm Oil Plantations are replacing their rainforests.
- These Exports and TNC’s provide jobs, income for governments, but the natural ecosystems and rainforests are being lost as a result
How the Growing Population and changes to the Global Economy use the Rainforest
- The global population is rising rapidly, meaning there is more demand than ever for resources
- The middle class is becoming a lot more wealthier worldwide, meaning people can afford to buy more (most of this is happening in South America and Asia)
- Companies are getting bigger and bigger and span across the globe as production costs and workers are found to be cheaper
- Developing countries sell all of these rainforest products to try and raise money to pay off all of their debt, with this becoming a bigger and bigger problem.
- Developing countries also need resources to expand and grow as an estimated 25% of urban population live in informal settlements, meaning that 1.8bn people live in bad conditions, shacks or in slums.
Why does Cattle Ranching cause deforestation
The types of farming that are destructive around the world vary from country to country. In Brazil, the cause of deforestation is mainly down to Cattle Ranches (60%). The thing that makes Cattle Ranching destructive to the rainforest, is that the area of rainforest is totally cleared to make space for the animals to graze and grow, and then the farmers will kill the animals and sell the meat. Overtime, more and more people have adopted this tactic and more of the rainforest is lost as a result of it.
Why does Palm Oil cause deforestation
In places such as Indonesia and Borneo, deforestation has mainly occurred due to them being replaced with Palm Oil Plantations. Growing Palm Oil Plantations or just growing one highly profitable product in bulk also decreases the amount of biodiversity in the area and essentially kills the ecosystem and all of it’s inhabitants, also meaning that species could go extinct, even further harming the Rainforest, but also everything else around it. This effectively makes large amounts of the rainforest disappear, just to clear the space for this to take place.
Why does Iron Ore Mines cause deforestation
Farming isn’t the only thing that rainforests are useful for, if there is evidence to that there are large amounts if ores buried in the ground, rainforests will be chopped down and the ground will be dug up to start to wield the resources. For example, the Carajas Complex in the Amazon is the largest iron ore mine on the planet with 3,000 men toiling at all times, just so the iron can be farmed and sold, and because of this, the area of the rainforest is gone.
Why does Timber cause deforestation
Timber is also another big part when it comes to rainforest deforestation, as trees are cut down for the wood to be made into furniture or paper (as well as other things), which means the rainforests will need to be cleared further to make roads and points to get all the trees and resources that are farmed to get processed and manufactured, and then exported.
Why does Urbanisation cause deforestation
Some parts of Rainforests are chopped down for Economic Development, as some developing, which are still expanding don’t have enough open space to facilitate their people in so the Rainforests are cut to build to be replaced with rods cities and housing; another example of this in a national scale. As well as this, rainforests are also removed to accommodate the space for local energy sources for the country, which can be renewable. For example, the Tucuri Dam was built into the Amazon, using water from the Amazon River to generate energy to the growing Brazilian population. However it then ended up flooding 1750km^2 of tropical rainforest.
