Tropical vegetation

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Tropical plants
)
Tropical coastline vegetation in Maui with Scaevola taccada bush in the foreground
Dense rainforest vegetation in the Itatiaia National Park in Brazil.
Typical Caribbean vegetation in Cuba.
Emperor Pedro II of Brazil surrounded by tropical vegetation at Quinta da Boa Vista, 1846

Tropical vegetation is any

tropical latitudes. Plant life that occurs in climates that are warm year-round is in general more biologically diverse that in other latitudes. Some tropical areas may receive abundant rain the whole year round, but others have long dry seasons which last several months and may vary in length and intensity with geographic location. These seasonal droughts have great impact on the vegetation, such as in the Madagascar spiny forests.[1]

Rainforest vegetation is categorized by five layers. The top layer being the upper tree layer. Here you will find the largest and widest trees in all the forest. These trees tend to have very large canopy's so they can be fully exposed to sunlight. A layer below that is the middle tree layer. Here you will find more compact trees and vegetation. These trees tend to be more skinny as they are trying to gain any sunlight they can. The third layer is the lower tree area. These trees tend to be around five to ten meters high and tightly compacted. The trees found in the third layer are young trees trying to grow into the larger canopy trees. The fourth layer is the shrub layer beneath the tree canopy. This layer is mainly populated by sapling trees, shrubs, and seedlings. The fifth and final layer is the herb layer which is the forest floor. The forest floor is mainly bare except for various plants, mosses, and ferns. The forest floor is much more dense than above because of little sunlight and air movement.[2]

Plant species native to the tropics found in tropical ecosystems are known as tropical plants. Some examples of tropical ecosystem are the Guinean Forests of West Africa, the Madagascar dry deciduous forests and the broadleaf forests of the Thai highlands and the El Yunque National Forest in the Puerto Rico.

Description

The term "tropical vegetation" is frequently used in the sense of lush and luxuriant, but not all the vegetation of the areas of the Earth in

tropical forests are low in nutrients making them quite vulnerable to slash-and-burn deforestation techniques, which are sometimes an element of shifting cultivation agricultural systems.[3]
Tropical vegetation may include the following habitat types:

Tropical rainforest

Amazon Rainforest, as well as the eastern Costa Paulon
rainforests.

Tropical seasonal forest

Indochina, and northern Australia: Queensland
.

Tropical dry broadleaf forest

Tropical dry broadleaf forests are territories with a forest cover that is not very dense and has often an unkempt, irregular appearance, especially in the dry season.[8] This type of forest often includes bamboo and teak as the dominant large tree species, such as in the Phi Pan Nam Range, part of the Central Indochina dry forests.[9] They are affected by often long seasonal dry periods and, though less biologically diverse than rainforests, tropical dry forests are home to a wide variety of wildlife.

Tropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands

baobab
may be present in these ecosystems depending on the region.

See also

Further reading

  • Archibold, O. W. Ecology of World Vegetation. New York: Springer Publishing, 1994.
  • Barbour, M.G, J.H. Burk, and W.D. Pitts. "Terrestrial Plant Ecology". Menlo Park: Benjamin Cummings, 1987.
  • Breckle, S-W. Walter's Vegetation of the Earth. New York: Springer Publishing, 2002.
  • Van der Maarel, E. Vegetation Ecology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2004.
  • Geoff Tracey The Vegetation of the Humid Tropical Region of North Queensland. Australia: CSIRO 1982.
  • Stork, N. E. & Turton, Stephen M. (2008). Living in a dynamic tropical forest landscape. Malden, MA : Blackwell Pub.
  • Leonard Webb A Physiognomic Classification of Australian Rain Forests Journal of Ecology Vol. 47, No. 3, pp. 551-570 (British Ecological Society), 1959

References

External links