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The Beginning
Climate
• hot and humid throughout the year, with an average annual temperature of 27°C (80.7°F)
• No pronounced seasons
• Not unusual to reach over 100 degrees in summer -
Population
In 1500 there were between 6 and 9 million Amazon natives. Today there are only an estimated 250,000 left. There are approximately 170 different languages spoken by the Amazon natives. -
Primary Consumers
Primary Consumers: agouti, morpho butterfly, three-toed sloth, tapir -
Secondary Consumers
Secondary Consumers: harpy eagle, jaguar, boa constrictor, golden lion tamarin -
Autotrophs
Autotrophs (Producers)- Brazil Nut (tree), Jackfruit (tree), Avocado (tree), Banana (tree) -
Carrying Capacities
An ecologist who lived in a planned agricultural village in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil from 1974 to 1976 has been studying the colonization of the rainforest and how human populations adapt to the new ecological systems in the Amazon. He presents a model for estimating carrying capacity based on his 11-year work on Brazil's Transamazon Highway. This book begins with a summary of how Brazil is colonizing the Amazon. -
Carrying Capacities
A summary of tropical rainforest's ecology, how this ecology influences pioneer farming, and the environmental problems associated with deforestation for agricultural purposes follows. The ecologist then places human settlement into the framework of ecological systems. He also considers the different techniques for estimating human carrying capacity to develop a methodology which fits the Transamazon Highway study. -
Carrying capacities
He examines the agricultural systems of the settlers to identify a model which fits into carrying capacity simulations. The model used for estimating carrying capacity includes resource allocation, product allocation, population sectors, and agricultural production. Stochastic models evaluate the significance of variability in crop yields on carrying capacity. This book may prove to be useful for planners and may contribute to the development of an adequate science of carrying capacity. -
Destroyed!
Since 1978 750,000 square kilometers (289,000 square miles) of Amazon rainforest have been destroyed across Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana, and French Guiana. -
Food Web
A system of interlocking and interdependent food chains
Producers (green plants)
^
Primary consumers (Insects, mice, chipmunks)
^
Secondary Consumers (spiders, wood peckers)
^
Tertiary Consumers (Hawk, owl, jaguar) -
Keystone Species
A keystone species is a species that has a disproportionately large effect on its environment relative to its abundance. Such species are described as playing a critical role in maintaining the structure of an ecological community, affecting many other organisms in an ecosystem and helping to determine the types and numbers of various other species in the community. -
Keystone Species: The Jaguar
A symbiotic relationship that the jaguar has is with the entire jungle. It is a keystone predator, with a diet of up to 87 species. The jaguar keeps down the population of the other species in the forest by being the top predator. It has a Mutualism relationship with the tropical rainforest. The jaguar feeds, and the tropical rainforest’s population is kept normal. -
Climax Community
An ecological community in which populations of plants or animals remain stable and exist in balance with each other and their environment. A climax community is the final stage of succession, remaining relatively unchanged until destroyed by an event such as fire or human interference. Examples include a fully grown kapok tree and the golden lion tamarin. -
Diversity
The Amazon is home to more species of plants and animals than any other terrestrial ecosystem on the planet -- perhaps 30% of the world's species are found there. Its biodiversity is astounding: a single bush in the Amazon may have more species of ants than the entire British Isles, while a lone hectare of forest may have more than 600 species of trees.Amazon biodiversity by the numbers:40,000 plant species16,000 tree species5600 fish species1300 birds430+ mammals1000+ amphibians400+ rep -
Limiting factors/resources
Sunlight is a limiting abiotic factor. This is due to a very dense canopy, sunlight is blocked from the rainforest floor making underbrush growth sparse.
Soil Nutrients is also a limiting abiotic factor. Rainforest soil is very acidic and provides little nutrients, plants depend on the decomposition of large fallen trees. -
Density-dependent/ independent factors
Density dependent: amount of food resources, availability of shelter/cover, intraspecific competition, abundance of predators, reproductive growth rate.
Density independent: Climate, soil chemistry, habitat disturbances -
Change is a good thing
in the later part of the 20th century, the deforestation began to change, with an increasing proportion of deforestation driven by industrial activities and large-scale agriculture. -
Golden Lion Tamarin
Pioneer: Golden Lion Tamarin; a type of monkey of the omnivore typle, the golden lion tamarin eats fruits, insects, spiders, lizards, etc. it can reach up to 12 inches long and a weight of about 2 pounds -
Cattle
By the 2000s more than three-quarters of forest clearing in the Amazon was for cattle-ranching. -
Deforestation has begun
mostly due to the falling deforestation rate in Brazil. There are a variety of reasons for the decline, including macroeconomic trends, new protected areas and indigenous territories, improved law enforcement, deforestation monitoring via satellite, pressure from environmental groups, and private sector initiatives. For most of human history, deforestation in the Amazon was primarily the product of subsistence farmers who cut down trees to produce crops for their families and local consumption. -
The Drought of 2005
the Amazon rainforest suffered the worst drought in over a century.As larger areas are cut down or burned on a yearly basis for cattle raising, farming or other purposes, this can only increase global warming due to the carbon dioxide and methane released into the atmosphere by the burning trees. -
Fireweed
A pioneer community:
fire weed; a plant that springs up on burned land, the pink-flowered Epilobium angustifolium, a widespread willow herb. -
Drought of 2010
This drought, like all other droughts, reduced the tree growth and repeated droughts may cause trees to die off all togeter. a drought is a way that forest firest way accure, All these effectes combined to make the Amazon basin in 2010 inti a source of carbon. Simon Lewis and his co-workers calculated that the impact of the 2010 drought amounted to an effective net transfer of 2.2 gigatonnes (billion tonnes) of carbon from the biomass to the atmosphere -
Lets Bounce Back!
Healthy ecosystems have an amazing ability to bounce back from a disturbance. Sometimes the ecosystem will go back to its former structure, with the same plant and animal species. Other times, the disturbance will create something new by allowing new species to move in. Only time will determine the effects of each disturbance. It could take days or decades, but eventually, the ecosystem will recover.
A rainforest could have a really bad fire but then it can also flood after that and it would ta -
Resources
Eukaryotic Species: http://www.exploringnature.org/db/detail.php?dbID=44&detID=3451 Climax Community: https://prezi.com/037u--arsqwl/amazon-rainforest/ Diversity: http://rainforests.mongabay.com/amazon/amazon_wildlife.html Keystone Species: https://endangeredspeciesbiomesprojects.wikispaces.com/Jaguar -
Resources part 2
Food Webs- http://www.exploringnature.org/db/detail.php?dbID=44&detID=3451 Carrying Capacities: http://www.popline.org/node/562883#sthash.zXGMrn86.dpuf Limiting Factors/Resources: http://discovertheamazonrainforest.weebly.com/limiting-factors.html Density-dependent/ independent factors: http://rainforests.mongabay.com/ https://prezi.com/037u--arsqwl/amazon-rainforest/
