ecosystems

• Tropical rainforests have hot climates, high annual rainfall, and support the greatest biodiversity of plant and animal life of any biome.
• Epiphytes are plants that grow on other plants without harming them or taking nutrients from them.
• Tropical rainforest are distributed on the equator
• Biotic is living (living creatures + plants )

  abiotic is non-liveing (climate + soil)
• Inter related meens how the abiotic and biotic elements support one another
• Ecosystems all have - climate - plants - living creatures and soils
• Producers are plants that’s a consumer will eat (eg: grass - rabbits)
• a Consumer is a animal that eats a producer (rabbit eats grass)
• Producer - primary consumer - secondary consumer - tertiary consumer - decomposer
• What are the different layers of the rainforest |~| Shrub layer - under canopy - canopy - emergent
• Lianas are have there roots in the ground and use other trees/plants to climb up into the canopy layer to maximise sunlight
• Buttress roots are trees that have there roots above the ground and so the big trees form the emergent Layer don’t fall over with the tree roots above ground the tree is stabilised better. Shallow roots to reach the thin layer of nutrients
• Rainforest trees have thin bark becuse it doesn’t need thick bark to keep the water in becuse there is constantly water therefor the trees are often smooth and think barked
• one Of spider monkeys many adaptations is it’s prehensile tail which allows them to clim trees faster and easier | since spider monkeys spend most of there life time in the canopy layer due to the forest floor being flooded tHey need exceptionally good climbing skills.
• Jaguars live in the shrub layer/ forest floor
• Jaguar’s have strong bite to catch pray / webbed feet to swim fast and catch pray and are camouflaged
• Deforestation is the removal of trees from an area, which increases the amount of carbon dioxide that can be absorbed by the atmosphere
• Logging is where trees are cut down unsustainably
• Commercial farming - is the farming where they use slash and burn techniques to gather resources for big company’s and to clear ground for cattle to graze as Brazil earns 1.9billion from the export of beef (brazils biggist export)
• After land been used for cattle ranching the soil becomes infertile
• Mineral extraction is the process of extracting minerals from the ground.
• Settlement - were they build city’s in the rainforest and tribes are disturbed
• Energy development- were they build dams letting the land flood and have terbines that let the water pass through producing energy (a reservoir has flooded 2,360-square-kilometre, almost the same size as Cornwal)
• Subsistence farming - is growing food for there own consumption and there family’s consumption
• Road building - the trans-Amazonian highway is a 4000km road which was built in 1972. It has indirectlily cussed a great deal of deforestation as it’s easier timber to be transported
• Population growth - is the most damaging cause because as Popula grows so does the demand for timber medicine food and other resources
• Soil erosion is a impact of when the Tropical rainforest land is cleared of it vegitation and soil is left bare. when it rains the nutrients is washed away and the soil can no longer support plant life (this is called leaching)
• Loss of biodiversity - this is where the number of species in an ecosystem decreases due to deforestation (disrupts the food web)
• Climate change is a impact to the rainforest because when trees are cut the Trees are no longer able to swap the carbon dioxide for oxygen therefore more co2 is released into atmosphere
• Economic development is a positive impact of deforestation because the Country can pay off debts or be invested in further development projects
• Logging and replanting is a sustainable mangment technique we’re they will selectively pick our mature trees and replant them with young trees (going from a primary forest to a secondary forest)
• Education is a sustainable management this promotes the value and benefits of biodiversity in the rainforest and raising awareness
• ecotourism is where a resort is made keeping the ecosystem’s in consideration so they use raised loges to let vegitation grow under the lodges and are a small scale resort and the lodges are very spread apart so the ecosystems arnt disturbed
• International agreements are agreements to protect tropical rain forests agreements have been made between different countries through debt or nature swaps.
• a value of the tropical rainforest for humans could be the food and medicine it provides
• A value of the tropical rainforest for the envioment is that it is a source of oxygen - they play important part in global water cycle.