Rainforest

About: Rainforest is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 6773 publications have been published within this topic receiving 249553 citations. The topic is also known as: rain forest & Rainforest.

Tropical Deforestation and Habitat Fragmentation in the Amazon: Satellite Data from 1978 to 1988

Abstract: Landsat satellite imagery covering the entire forested portion of the Brazilian Amazon Basin was used to measure, for 1978 and 1988, deforestation, fragmented forest, defined as areas less than 100 square kilometers surrounded by deforestation, and edge effects of 1 kilometer into forest from adjacent areas of deforestation. Tropical deforestation increased from 78,000 square kilometers in 1978 to 230,000 square kilometers in 1988 while tropical forest habitat, severely affected with respect to biological diversity, increased from 208,000 to 588,000 square kilometers. Although this rate of deforestation is lower than previous estimates, the effect on biological diversity is greater.

Drought sensitivity of the Amazon rainforest.

Abstract: Amazon forests are a key but poorly understood component of the global carbon cycle. If, as anticipated, they dry this century, they might accelerate climate change through carbon losses and changed surface energy balances. We used records from multiple long-term monitoring plots across Amazonia to assess forest responses to the intense 2005 drought, a possible analog of future events. Affected forest lost biomass, reversing a large long-term carbon sink, with the greatest impacts observed where the dry season was unusually intense. Relative to pre-2005 conditions, forest subjected to a 100-millimeter increase in water deficit lost 5.3 megagrams of aboveground biomass of carbon per hectare. The drought had a total biomass carbon impact of 1.2 to 1.6 petagrams (1.2 × 1015 to 1.6 × 1015 grams). Amazon forests therefore appear vulnerable to increasing moisture stress, with the potential for large carbon losses to exert feedback on climate change.

Neotropical Rainforest Mammals: A Field Guide

Abstract: A field guide to the marvellously diverse creatures of the rainforest, this book includes information on 226 species. It identifies characteristics, similar species, vocalization, behaviour and natural history, geographic range, conservation status, local names and literature references. All species accounts from the first edition have been updated to include the most recent research. All 195 maps showing the distribution and geographic range of each species have been revised to reflect current information. In addition, the colour plates illustrate more than 220 species (including significant colour variants between males and females or adults and young). The black and white plates contain more than 60 images of individual species, mainly bats.

Plant Responses to Multiple Environmental FactorsPhysiological ecology provides tools for studying how interacting environmental resources control plant growth

Abstract: M ost plants require a similar balance of resources-energy, water, and mineral nutrients-to maintain optimal growth. Natural environments, however, differ by at least two orders of magnitude in the availability of these resources. Light intensity varies 100fold from the canopy to the floor of a rainforest (Bj6rkman 1981); annual precipitation ranges 500-fold (105000 mm/yr) from deserts to tropical rainforests; and the amount of nitrogen available to plants varies from 0.09 g/m2 * yr in polar desert (Dowding et al. 1981) to 22.8 g/m2 * yr in a rich tropical rainforest (Vitousek 1984). Plants growing in these diverse environments maintain tissue concen-