pa3 , another section

Question 1

what is biodiversity

Answer 1

biodiversity is the number of different plants and animal species in an area

Question 2

why is biodiversity so high in rainforests

Answer 2

• Good climate for all year round growth and reproduction
• Rainforests are ancient and have a stable climate so thousands of different species evolved
• Multiple layers provide numerous different, specialised habitats, plants and animals have evolved to take advantage of these

Question 3

how sloths are adapted

Answer 3

• huge claws allow to hang upside down from branches
• fur grows away from their feet to help shed rain when upside down
• green algae growing in their fur helps camouflage them from predators

Question 4

how big cats are adapted

Answer 4

jaguars, tigers, leopards all have camouflaged fur ‘= dark and light
fur blends with sun/shade on the forest flaw

Question 5

how birds are adapted

Answer 5

• loud : calls to hear mate rather than see them in the dense canopy
• parrots and macaws have powerful banks to open nuts

Question 6

how primates are adapted

Answer 6

lemurs and monkeys evolved to live in the canopy where most food is
long tails used for balance
strong claws to grip trees and branches

Question 7

how evergreen hardwood trees are adapted

Answer 7

tall slender trunks with no branches but huge triangular buttress roots to support weight leaving leaves and branches on top where sunlight is

Question 8

how epiphytes are adapted

Answer 8

these plants live in the tree canopy

evolved to get nutrients from the soil as roots dangle in mid air

Question 9

how lianas adapted

Answer 9

climbing plants use tree as their trunk - their stems cling to trees and climb up to sunlight in the canopy while getting water and nutrients from the soil below

Question 10

how drip tip leaves are adapted

Answer 10

most rainforest plants have thick, waxy leaves with drip tips which shed water. quickly to prevent leaves rotting

Question 11

how soil supports biodiverse forests

Answer 11

via the nutrient cycle

Question 12

what do all plants need to grow

Answer 12

nutrients

Question 13

external factors affecting the nutrient cycle?

Answer 13

Nutrients can be added to an ecosystem by precipitation and weathering

they can also be removed by runoff of leaching (when nutrients are washed out of soil by water moving through it)

They are taken up from soil as plants (on biomass) grow

They are returned to it when they die, first as litter (or decaying leaves and twigs) on the soil surface and then back into the soil as litter clays

therefore

nutrients move between biomass, litter and soil in a continuous cycle that keeps both plants and soil healthy

Question 14

in the TRF , the nutrient cycle is…

Answer 14

RAPID

Question 15

Most nutrients in the TRF are stored in biomass so if forest is cut down, most nutrients are destroyed…effects?
Without forest to protect it, litter and soil is easily eroded by heavy rains

As rainforest soils contain few nutrients, land cannot be formed for long before having to move on

Question 16

Taiga location

Answer 16

between 50 degrees and 70 degrees latitude, mostly in the northern hemisphere
Huge areas of Russia and Canada are covered

Question 17

how have coniferous (evergreen) trees adapted in Taiga

Answer 17

They have adapted to the cold climate - their shape allows snow to fall, instead of weighing on the branches, and their pine needles prevent damage by wind or snow

Question 18

Taiga weather

Answer 18

short, wet summers of three months when temperatures rise to 20 degrees celsius

Long cold dry winters with several months below freezing, as low as-20 degrees celsius

Low precipitation
Snow on ground for many months

Question 19

why is biodiversity so low in the taiga

Answer 19

• only reptiles and amphibians are adapted to cold climate and they are quite rare
• Growing season only 4-5 months so little food int he winter

Question 20

why must animals adapt to cold. winter in taiga

Answer 20

plants stop growing
snow cover makes grazing difficult even for dead plants
Temperatures are bitterly cold

Question 21

mammal adaptations to taiga

Answer 21

thick, oily fur to help retain heat and provide waterproofing

Because food is hard to find, some hibernate eg bears

Many birds only live in taiga in summer then migrate for winter due to lack of food.

Question 22

what is NPP (net primary productivity)

Answer 22

A measure of how much new plant and animal growth - or biomass - is added to a biome each year, measured in grams per square metre per year

Question 23

when is productivity greater

Answer 23

when there is plenty of sunlight
high temperatures
precipitation

Question 24

direct threats to the TRF

Answer 24

Deliberate cutting down of trees for timber to make roads or to convert the forest into farmland

• Cattle ranches (60 percent)
• small scale subsistence agriculture(30 percent)
• fires, mining, urbanisation, road construction, dams (3 percent)
• Logging, legal and illegal (3 percent)
• Large-scale commercial agriculture including soybeans (1 percent)

Question 25

Indirect threats to TRF

Answer 25

Come from pollution
global warming
disease

Question 26

Reasons for deforestation

Answer 26

• Poverty, in many LICs locals cut down small areas of forest for land to farm since they have no other way of making a living
• Debt, some countries may cut down trees, export timberor grow cash crops to pay off debt
• Economic development - most tropical forests are in the developed world, in order to develop their economies, forests are sacrificed in the place of roads, expanding cities, and to dam rivers and build hydroelectric power (HEP) stations
• Demand for resources, tropical forests contain raw materials eg timer, oil, gas, iron ore and gold…to get these, forest must be destroyed and land is also needed to feed growing population

Question 27

Examples of places where TRF are being destroyed for commercial reasons

Answer 27

• Mineral exploitation - eg Colton mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo; Colton is a mineral used in mobile phones, it is dug from ground from shallow mines
• Hydroelectric Power (HEP) eg Tucural Dam in Amazon, Brazil

Question 28

Different rates of deforestation?

Answer 28

one cause is due to poverty eg in some LICs like Burundi

also the palm oil industry in Indonesia

Protection of forest in some MICs which lower deforestation rates

Isolation eg in places that are inacessable

Question 29

global warming

Answer 29

Rising population plus resource consumption add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere which causes Climate change

Question 30

Effects of’ Global Warming TF

Answer 30

Plants flowering earlier
Birds migration patterns are changing
The Arctic tundra is warming rapidly
Vegetation zones are shifting towards the Poles by 6km every year

Question 31

How droughts put the forest ecosystem under stress

Answer 31

during the leaf litter so decomposer organisms causing leaves in the canopy to die, reducing the food supply and affecting food webs

Question 32

what is making droughts more common and severe

Answer 32

deforestation

-with less trees, there is less evaporation and transpiration meaning less clouds and less rain

Question 33

Fear with droughts

Answer 33

Is that they will become more common and rainforests will suffer permanent damage and die back
as this happens they could become sources of carbon dioxide , not carbon dioxide sinks, accelerating global warming and forest fires even more and some think that 60 percent of th Amazon could become a tiny savanna

Question 34

Why is deforestation of Taiga less problematic than that of rainforest?

Answer 34

Biome is very vast, in spite of Canadian and Russian deforestation, only 8 percent of intact taiga has been lost

• Much of taiga is isolated and out of. sight in the frozen northern latitudes
• Few ‘cute’ and cuddly’ species under threat that people get excited about

Question 35

how forest fires are a problem in (cold and wet) taiga

Answer 35

summers can be hot and dry
thick carpet of pine needle litter helps start a fire
summer storms generate lightning strikes
coniferous trees contain sticky resin which burns easily

Question 36

Fire is an important and natural part of the taiga ecosystem, how does it allow the forest to regenerate itself?

Answer 36

Aspen and birch tree sprout from burned stumps

Black spruce, pine cones open when burned, releasing seeds

Question 37

how too much fire will cause long-term reduction in biodiversity

Answer 37

forests will not regenerate properly as trees will not mature between fires

fire tolerant species begin to dominate, reducing biodiversity

Trees that cannot tolerate fire decline and so do the birds and insects that feed on them

Question 38

three consequences of pests and diseases

Answer 38

they reduce commercial value of forest, preventing it being sold as timber

They drastically alter the ecosystem - killing

tree species alters food web

They change the landscape from dense forest to a more open landscape with fewer trees

> Biodiversity is reduced because only forest trees that can resist pests and diseases grow in this area

Question 39

Spruce bark beetle - for taiga I think

Answer 39

2.5 hectares of spruce in taiga have been destroyed due to them

large storms due to global warming make them fly off and infect new areas

Warmer winters - global warming - stop many of them dying in the winter

Question 40

White pine blister rust - for taiga i think

Answer 40

A fungal disease attacking white pine trees
invasive species (from Europe to North America) 
Once economically important tree for commercial logging in Canada but blister rust devastated the trees and prevented them from regrowing

Question 41

Formation of acid rain

Answer 41

Fossil fuels are burnt, releasing sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide into the air

These react with water in clouds to form sulphuric and nitric acids

Precipitation carries these acids down to surface

Question 42

Effects of acid rain

Answer 42

• makes lakes so acidic that fish and aquatic plants die
• weakens trees
• damages needles (especially spruce) and their ability to photosynthesize
• Damage to tree roots as aluminium compounds released when soil becomes too acidic
• damaged soil contains less essential plants nutrients (eg less calcium and magnesium)
• Weaker roots cannot take up nutrients
• Weak trees are more vulnerable to disease and insect attack

> biodiversity is reduced as forests become stressed

> some trees ide, reducing food availability for other species

> plants that tolerate acidic soil are reduced

Question 43

what is CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wILD fAUNA AND flora)

Answer 43

is an international agreement between governments with the aim to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival

Question 44

what is REDD Programme (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest degradation)

Answer 44

Promotes involvement of all stakeholders (companies?) including indigenous people and other forest - dependent communities, in national and international implementation to reduce the rate of deforestation and replant forest areas.