Rainforest information

tropical rainforest

Tropical rainforests are distributed in humid areas on both sides of the equator, with evergreen trees with wet characteristics, vines with thick stems, and rainforests with woody and herbaceous epiphytes. These areas are hot and rainy all the year round, with an annual average temperature above 26℃, a monthly average temperature above 20℃ and an annual precipitation of 2,500-4,500 mm, which are evenly distributed throughout the year, with no obvious dry season. There are many kinds of plants, mainly tall trees, with complex community structure and many layers of trees. Tall trees usually have flat roots. In addition, aerial roots, supporting roots and old stems are also common. Evergreen large pinnate compound leaves have many dripping tips. Climbing plants, especially woody vines, are abundant in epiphytes, and there are woody ferns and big-leaved herbs under the forest. There are many kinds of animals, including orangutans, gibbons, tree shrews, rhinoceroses, elephants, tapirs and porcupines. Tropical rainforests are mainly distributed in Amazon basin in South America, Congo basin in Africa and some islands in Southeast Asia, and also distributed in Xishuangbanna, China, southern Taiwan Province Province and southern Hainan Island. The biodiversity is extremely high and the biological resources are very rich. It plays an important role in maintaining the balance between oxygen and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

tropical rainforest

"This land is a huge, natural, messy and lush greenhouse created by nature for itself." This is what Charles Darwin said when he first saw the rainforest more than 50 years ago. He talked about it in a derogatory way, which is really unbearable. Life is nothing more than dancing wildly. Tropical rainforests have beautiful scenery and almost endless sounds and smells. Exploring the rainforest is like visiting a strange and mysterious planet.

Almost all tropical rainforests are located on both sides of the equator, from the Tropic of Cancer in the north to the Tropic of Cancer in the south. This equatorial belt is like a wide belt, tied to the abdomen of the earth. In the equatorial zone, the rainforest is very lush, and every forest is Eden. They are the jungle of the world. South America boasts that the Amazon jungle in Brazil and several other neighboring countries is the largest Eden in the world. This area, the size of Australia, is named after the Amazon River, which is the largest river that meanders through it. This 4000-mile-long Amazon River is wide and swift, and its mouth is the Atlantic Ocean. Sail 100 miles on this Wang Yang sea, and you can also scoop a glass of fresh water. One sixth of the fresh water flowing on the earth flows from the vast Amazon River to the ocean.

Other rainforests are distributed in Central America, South Asia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Central Africa (mainly Zaire). There are also some rainforests in Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands in the United States. Figure 1 shows the distribution map of major tropical rainforests in the world.

Although most rainforests are located at the equator, they are very different. Scientists believe that there are more than 40 different kinds of rainforests, all of which have their own animals and plants. Tropical rain forest can be roughly divided into three types: tropical dry forest, tropical wet forest and real tropical rain forest. This paper mainly talks about the most common tropical rain forest, which is closest to the equator and has the lowest latitude. They are the wettest land in the world, soaked by 400 inches of rain every year, compared with 43 inches in new york and 20 inches in San Francisco. The average temperature in the tropical rain forest is 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and the temperature changes little.

Life thrives in this hot and humid environment, and the tropical rain forest has become the most complex and diverse environment on earth. They only account for 7% of the earth's total land area, but they have 90% of the earth's animal and plant species. Tropical rain forest should be called "the most vital place in the world".

Biodiversity of rainforest

There are as many as 25 different tree species in the thickest forests in the continental United States. There are 2,500 different tree species in the rainforests of Borneo alone. There are 450 trees in Brazil's 2.5-acre Amazon basin. The tallest tree in the rainforest is 200 feet high. These giant trees are all tree species that suddenly evolved, with lush foliage at the top and standing on the leaves with dense crowns.

The canopy of the rainforest consists of a huge canopy, which stands on the ground, from 100 feet to 120 feet high. About two-thirds of the plants and animals in the rainforest live and inhabit the canopy, which shows the most spectacular scene in nature. There are as many as 20 thousand kinds of epiphytes that are parasitic on trees and do not harm them. These epiphytes cover the canopy, just like a spectacular aerial botanical garden. The roots of epiphytes hang freely, absorbing water and nutrients from the air, or absorbing nutrients from humus accumulated in the gap between the trunk and branches.

Orchids are by far the most common and beautiful epiphytes. Most orchids in the world grow in tropical rain forests. For millions of years, they have changed significantly with animals. There is an orchid whose flowers imitate the general body shape of a special female insect and unconsciously contact with haplotype male plants to complete pollination.

Bromeliaceae is another epiphyte. Its relatives can get rain from the bottom of the leaves. These stagnant rainwater forms a micro-ecosystem on which insects and small amphibians (such as poison dart frogs) depend. Poisonous poison dart frogs with bright skin are used by forest hunters to make poisonous arrows and darts that can blow spears. Voodoo doctors found that this toxin can make people stupid.

There are many wild flying microorganisms in the canopy of the rainforest. Half of the world's birds (about thousands of species) live in the Amazon rainforest. They danced tirelessly among the flowers. Hummingbirds' slender mouths are an important pollination tool. Their wings flap 50 to 80 times a second, which is extremely fast; If people want to reach this speed, the energy consumed every day is equivalent to 130 calories of bread.

Colorful parrots, macaws, toucans and birds of paradise decorate the crown like priceless jewels. Their loud cries are common sounds in rainforests. Hawks and falcons are dominant in the habitat of the canopy, and they will suddenly dive down and kill those animals that are too slow to escape their attacks. They rank first in the forest food chain.

A large number of bats inhabiting the tropical rain forest are also a very special animal. They are the only mammals that can really fly, and there are more than 1000 species of bats in the rainforest. In some areas, about half of mammals are bats. Their biomass is greater than that of all other mammals combined.

Bats vary in size, from small bats that eat insects to "flying foxes" that eat fruits, with a wingspan of 6 feet. There are three kinds of vampire bats. They cut their prey with triangular incisors as sharp as razors. There is an anesthetic in the bat's saliva to make the prey painless during the whole process, and a coagulant to ensure that the nutrients needed by the bat are not lost.

Bats, like insects and birds, are important pollinators of rainforest plants and also play a great role in sowing. After eating the fruit, bats spread the seeds to all parts of the tropical rain forest during their flight. It is estimated that 95% of the seeds in the tropical rain forest are spread by bats.

Under the canopy, shrubs, vines and small trees compete for space, and limited light leaks through thick vegetation. These flora form an undergrowth forest, which consists of leafy branches between 50 feet and 80 feet above the rainforest.

Trees under the forest live with creatures such as crowns. It brings together most primates such as monkeys and apes in the world to swing from side to side and climb up and down. Long-haired monkeys, spider monkeys and screaming monkeys abound in the jungles of Central and South America. The common feature of primates in the Western Hemisphere is that they have a tail that can be coiled around branches and have evolved into a fifth limb that adapts to life in trees. Monkeys in the old world (Asia and Africa) didn't have such tails.

Chimpanzees can be found everywhere in African rainforests. Chimpanzees, like gorillas, gibbons and orangutans, belong to apes rather than monkeys, so they have no tails. They hunt on the rainforest floor as flexibly as climbing in the canopy. The largest ape gorilla is also a creature of the African rainforest. Because of their huge size, adult gorillas rarely climb trees.

The most common large mammal in the rainforests of Central and South America is the lazy monkey. They are unique in that they can be hung upside down on branches, and their long curved claws are like meat hooks. Lazy monkeys eat, sleep, mate and even give birth in this position. Their fur is covered with a lot of seaweed, which gives lazy monkeys a light green protective color. Different from other mammals, the body temperature of the lazy monkey changes with the change of temperature, so it can be seen hanging upside down in the sun anywhere in the tree crown.

The jaguar foraging around the Amazon rainforest is the real beastmaster in the American jungle. Jaguars are the third largest cats after lions and tigers. It rules the whole forest from the crown to the ground, attacking weak and slow-moving animals. It ranks first in the food chain, and there are no animals that feed on it in nature.

There are no empty ecological niches in the rainforest, and some extremely strange animals have appeared. Arnold Newman described some animals in the tropical rain forest as follows:

The creatures displayed here are like an incredible catalogue. Grass, like bamboo, can grow to 100 feet and 36 inches high in one day; "Rose" with a tree body of 145 feet; Daisies and violets are as big as apple trees; Pteridophytes are 60 feet tall, and some of them belong to the hardest wood; A 37.5-foot-long retractable snake; The floating leaves of water lilies are 5 feet in diameter and can support the weight of a child ... The big flower is the king of flowers in the world, with a diameter of 38 inches and a weight of 38 pounds. The nectary contains several gallons of liquid; Moths with wingspan 12 inches and frogs weighing 100 pounds are big enough to swallow mice and rodents.

It's really strange here. Strange things are often dangerous. In the backwater of the majestic Amazon River and many tributaries, American crocodiles lurk everywhere. Piranhas can show their sharp teeth and tear up 200-pound animals in a few minutes. The devil who preys on all animals in the water is a terrible parasitic catfish with sharp spines. After it smells urine, it enters the urethral orifice of the external genitalia of its prey. They can enter the bladder through the urethra to survive, and can only be removed by surgery. They caused great pain to the patients. Many men in the Amazon tribe usually tie a foreskin bundle at the urethral orifice of their genitals to avoid being invaded by parasitic catfish.

Ordinary ants in the tropical rain forest also grow very big. The biggest ants are African spear ants and South American ants. Thousands of these ants, one inch long or longer, will destroy everything along the way when they pass through the jungle. The horse and cow were eaten alive, and all lives were spared.

Sperm ants, piranhas and poisonous tree snakes are also active in the crown. Strangely, they are not the most poisonous animals in the tropical rain forest. The most poisonous animal is a humble little mosquito. Female ant bites can spread malaria pathogens (this disease is the biggest disease killer in the world). Mosquitoes also spread filariasis that causes elephantiasis. Patients with this etiology have a large number of filariasis in their legs, which is named after swelling like legs. Once the patient is infected with external genitalia, the testicles should be put into the cart before walking.

Destruction of Rainforest —— A worldwide disaster

The figures listed in Lewis Scott's book Rainforest show that the rainforest is completely destroyed at the rate of 67 acres per minute (equivalent to a football field). Every year, a rainforest the size of New York State disappears forever. Scott warned, "if the rainforest decreases at this rate, most of it will disappear by the end of this century."

The disappearance of the rainforest means that mankind will lose a large number of species forever. Species will be endangered. Many species are now in danger. Orangutans with orange fur (called "forest elders" because their faces are very similar to human faces) used to be everywhere in Asia. Due to the great destruction of habitats, the only gorillas living in trees are becoming less and less, and can only be found in Sumatra and Borneo, Indonesia.

How many other animals and plants are extinct or endangered? No one knows, and there is no way to know. There are 95% undiscovered creatures on the earth. What happened to them? Up to now, 6.5438+0.5 million species of organisms have been discovered, half of which are insects. However, there are 65.438+million or even 1 100 million species of insects here, and most of them live in tropical rain forests.

Newman wrote an interesting observation in the book Tropical Rainforest: We can accurately measure the distance from the earth to the moon (the error is less than 0.25 inch), but we can identify less than 6% of the creatures that inhabit the earth. In my opinion, readers don't know what creatures are in the tropical rain forest, so they don't care about their life and death. But we all know that letting the rainforest disappear means that mankind will lose a lot:

A quarter of drugs come from plants and animals in the tropical rain forest. The American National Cancer Institute has identified 3,000 kinds of plants with anti-cancer function. 70% of them grow in tropical rain forests. Rose-colored Catharanthus roseus can be used to make several medicines for treating childhood leukemia and Hodgkin's disease. Quinine extracted from the bark of tropical cinchona tree is a magical drug for treating malaria. Squibb's medicine is a medicine for treating hypertension, which is made from the venom of Brazilian rattlesnake.

At least 2,500 potential new fruits and vegetables grow in tropical rainforests around the world. Genes obtained from domestic animals and plants in tropical rainforests can be used to improve local livestock. All domestic chickens are descendants of four kinds of jungle birds in Asia. More than 80% of our food, including coffee and cocoa, comes from the rainforest.

Rainforests also provide human beings with tire rubber, chewing gum, paints and cosmetics and olive oil. There is a special tree in the rainforest that provides hard latex for golf. Diesel oil can be exported directly from the Copeba tree in Brazil. This tree provides 20% of Brazil's diesel oil. Melvin Calvin, the discoverer of this phenomenon, won the Nobel Prize.

Why destroy such a precious resource? There are certain reasons. Logging companies cut down a large number of trees and ship hardwood timber to various countries for sale. By the way, Japan is the largest importer of tropical timber in the world, producing a large number of disposable wooden chopsticks with wood every year and building 1. 1 000 houses.

In the rainforest area, it is also common to cut down trees to build pastures. However, this method is extremely inefficient. It is estimated that it takes 67 square feet of Brazilian rainforest to get a 0.25-pound hamburger. People don't think that the soil in the rainforest is actually very thin and fragile, and a few heavy rains can wash away all the topsoil. A few years later, ranchers had to give up their old pastures and look for new ones.

In this "slash and burn", many tropical rainforests were cut down and turned into farms. People cut down trees and burn them, and ashes add much-needed nutrients to the soil. However, the fate of the farm is the same as that of the pasture. The topsoil was quickly washed away and the farm had to be abandoned. People have destroyed a lot of forests and planted coca for illegal drug smuggling. From 65438 to 0988, cocaine ranked first in Colombia's commodity exports, with an export value of $4 billion. Coffee ranked second, with an export value of $654.38+$50 million.

Cutting down and burning rainforests is far more than destroying countless animal and plant species. Destroying the biodiversity on the earth means destroying the atmosphere on which human beings depend. This is a chain reaction.

Green plants and seaweed are special creatures. They inhale carbon dioxide from the air and mix it with water drawn from soil (or ocean) to form monosaccharide, glucose and oxygen. This wonderful change is accomplished by the green pigment in plants (chlorophyll absorbs sunlight to carry out chemical reaction, that is, photosynthesis).

Trees store carbon dioxide absorbed from the air in the form of glucose, which can effectively reduce the content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Trees in tropical rain forests grow rapidly and play an important role in promoting photosynthesis. These trees absorb millions of tons of carbon dioxide from the air every year.

Carbon dioxide is a kind of greenhouse gas, and the pollution of industrial and automobile exhaust also produces a lot of carbon dioxide, so it is extremely necessary to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases absorb heat reflected from the earth's surface to prevent heat leakage. As a result, objects heat up, which is called "global warming".

In the farm built by slash-and-burn deforestation, "slash-and-burn" does have double consequences. First of all, cutting down trees will reduce photosynthesis and eventually increase the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (which will also reduce the oxygen content necessary for life in the atmosphere). Photosynthesis is very important for oxygen circulation to ensure that there is no lack of oxygen in the atmosphere. Secondly, burning forests will produce a lot of carbon dioxide, which will further worsen the environment. In the end, it can only bring disastrous climate change, melting glaciers and floods. This is not an ordinary disaster, it will cause more animal and plant deaths.

In the past 500 million years, the earth has experienced five mass extinctions. The last time was at the end of Cretaceous about 66 million years ago, when dinosaurs became extinct. But this is not the worst time. The worst loss was in the Permian about 245 million years ago, when life was extinct on a large scale, 77% to 96% of marine animal species disappeared, and a large number of ground creatures were extinct.

If the rainforest is completely destroyed, by the middle of the next century, it is obvious that mankind is likely to experience the sixth mass extinction. Like previous disasters, life will be severely tested again. But we have lost the Darwinian moth forever. Its tongue is 8 inches long, which can suck juice from special species of orchids, and the grass frog, whose body is almost transparent and its bones are green.

Charies William Bibby, a great naturalist explorer, once said meaningfully, "If the last individual of a certain creature stops breathing, it can only be seen again after a new celestial body or the earth is resurrected."