This document goes into detail about the tropical rainforests, with the case study being in Malaysia, specifically on the island of Borneo. It goes into detail about deforestation and the impacts of deforestation.
A biome is a large scale ecosystem, which is a community of plants and animals that interact with
each other and the soil, rock, water and air around them. Generally, biomes are regions of the world
with similar climate, animals and plant. One of the biomes in the world is a tropical rainforest.
Usually, biomes take their name from the dominant vegetation type found there, for example
tropical rainforest or deciduous forest or Mediterranean.
Distribution means the way that something is spread over an area. Some words that can describe
distribution on a map is stating which hemisphere it is in, relations to continents/countries, compass
directions and if it is inland or coastal or the use of latitude and longitude.
Climate -> Climate factors include the temperature and precipitation of an area.
Climate in tropical rainforests
The climate in tropical rainforests is that it is very wet, with over 2000mm of rain every year. As well
as that, very warm temperature with an average temperature of 28°C. The temperature never drops
below 20°C and hardly exceeds 35°C. The temperature is hot and humid and the climate is consistent
all year round and had no seasons.
The hot temperatures is due to the rainforests being located close to the Equator, meaning that the
Sun’s rays are concentrated near the Equator meaning that it is very hot unlike biomes further away
from the Equator where rays are spread over a large area. Because of the positioning of the
rainforests on the Earth’ surface it means that it is low pressure in rainforests. Low pressure means
that the humid air rises up creating clouds which then rain over the area.
The Layers of the Rainforest
There are 4 layers in a rainforest: the emergent, the canopy, the under canopy and the forest floor.
The emergent layer contains a small number of large trees which grow to over 50m tall. They have
small leaves to stop evapotranspiration, which is the process of losing water through the pores of
leaves (transpiration) and the water evaporated by heat (evaporation). Eagles, bats, butterflies and
monkeys live in this layer.
The layer under the emergent is the canopy. The canopy is the primary layer of the forest. Maze of
leaves and branches. Many animals live in this layer because of the access to food such as snakes,
toucans and tree frogs.
The layer under the canopy is the understory. The understory has little sunshine because of the
canopy and emergent layers getting most of the sunlight so trees in the understory layer have to
grow longer leaves. Plants can grow up to 4m. Some of the animals that live in this layer are jaguars,
red-eyed tree frogs and leopards. As well as that a lot of insects live here.
, Finally the bottom layer is called the forest floor. The forest floor is very dark. Almost no plants grow
here and vegetation has large leaves with a large surface area. Gian anteaters live in this area.
Week 2 : What’s unique about the rainforest water and nutrient cycle ?
The water cycle
The water cycle in tropical rainforests happen a lot faster because of the intense sunlight. As the
temperature in the rainforest increases during the day, it causes water to evaporate into the
atmosphere. This water vapour cools, condenses and forms into clouds to make the next day’s rain.
This is called convectional rainfall. This entire cycle is repeated every day.
Question: ‘Rainforests produce their own rainfall’
Answer:
Rainforests release water via transpiration through leaves and evaporation. The loss of water to the
air leaves a critical part of the water cycle on Earth and this means that the water vapour will always
be replenished at some point. More than 50% of the precipitation in a rainforest will return back to
the atmosphere meaning that not much rain water will go into rivers. Most of the water by
evapotranspiration will be returned back to the atmosphere, so rainforests do make their own
rainfall.
Soil Erosion
Soil erosion is the erosion of the top part of the soil, the part which contains the nutrients for plant
to grow and the erosion is mostly due to the rain pouring down on the soil.
Week 3: What are the causes and consequences of deforestation?
Palm Oil
Palm oil is a product found in a lot of foods and other products such as chocolate, lipstick and etc.
Malaysia, a country in South-East Asia, is the largest exporter in palm oil. Malaysia consists of two
mainland : Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo, an island which Malaysia shares with 2 countries ,Brunei
and Indonesia. Palm oil originates from the fruit of oil palm. The plants originally came from West
Africa but were introduced to South-East Asia. Palm oil can be used in biofuel. Palm oil is a super-
efficient crop, meaning that we can produce 3x more palm oil per acre than other oil plants. The
plantation of palm oil causes 8% of deforestation from 1990-2008.
Deforestation Advantages and Disadvantages
Bold = Positive Unbold = Negative
Red = Environmental Blue = Economic Social = Green
Local Impacts of deforestation -> Ecosystems are at risk , more space for residential buildings and
agriculture, increases the economy of the area and the country, limits biodiversity, political turmoil
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