Tropical Rainforest Biome Botany（热带雨林生物群系植物学）.pdf

Tropical Rainforest Biome The land is one great, wild, untidy luxuriant hothouse, made by Nature for herself . . . How great would be the desire in every admirer of Nature to behold, if such were possible, the scenery of another planet! . . . Yet to every person it may truly be said, that the glories of another world are opened to him Charles Darwin in The Voyage of the Beagle Tropical Rainforest Biome Never to have seen anthing but the temperate zone is to have lived on thefringe of the world David Fairchild Tropical Rainforest Biome • associated with warm, moist tropical lowlands; equatorial rainbelt; short dry season sometimes • most diverse and structurally complex biome • multi-layered, evergeen canopy provides diversity of niches • recurrent structural and physiological adaptations to similar environments; these have arisen in quite different floras Tropical Rainforest Biome Location: 1. Equator to 10° or 25° N S latitude and 0 - 1,000m elevation in Americas, Africa, SE Asia Tropical Rainforest Biome Location: 2. Along coasts windward to the trades — E. Brazil, Madagascar, NE Australia Tropical Rainforest Biome Location: 3. East coasts with orographic precipitation — E. Panama and Costa Rica, E. Puerto Rico Tropical Rainforest Biome Location: Seasonally dry tropical forests adjacent at higher latitudes or on leeward side of montane regions Tropical Rainforest Biome Three floristically diverse regions: 1. American: 50% of area 2. African: 20% 3. S.E. Asian - Pacific: 30% Tropical Rainforest Biome Fragmentation of rainforests — especially African and Asian — ongoing