Canopy rain-forest

Of the 250,000 species of known plants, about 170,000 grow in the tropical rain forest, more than half native to the Americas. Many of these, mostly broad-leaved evergreens, large ferns, lianas, and epiphytic orchids, have been transplanted to other tropical regions or have adapted to indoor culture. Tropical rain forests in the Indo-Pacific are dominated by resinous trees in the Dipterocarpaceae, which make a sheltering canopy. The African tropical rain forest is the poorest in species. 

Edmonds, R. L., T. B. Thomas, and J. J. Rhodes. 1991. Canopy and soil modification of precipitation chemistry in a temperate rain forest. Soil Science Society of America Journal 55 1685-1693. 

The white-handed titi (C. torquatus) and the dusky titi (C. moloch) occupy the same forested region of the upper Amazon. The dusky titi lives along rivers and in wet forests, while the white-handed titi lives on higher ground. The white-handed titi likes heights so much that it sleeps on the branches of the tall emergent trees that stand above the high canopy of the rain forest, several hundred feet above the forest floor. 

Rain Forest Aerial Tram - A fascinating experience where vistors can ride in an open-air gondola through the rainforest canopy. See page 122... 

Foliar phosphorus concentrations typically decline with canopy depth in tropical rain forests (Lloyd et al, 1995) and so it is not straightforward to relate bulked canopy values to physiological measurements made on individual leaves. But similar... 

Inoue, T., Hamid, A.A., 1995. Introduction to the canopy biology program in Sarawak. In Lee, H.S., Ashton, P.S., Ogino, K. (Eds.), Long Term Ecological Research of Tropical Rain Forest in Sarawak II-3. pp. 120-131. 

Wendt, T., Composition, floristic affinities, and origins of the canopy tree flora of the Atlantic slope rain forests, in Biological Diversity of Mexico Origins and Distribution, Ramamoorthy, T.P et ah, Eds, Oxford University Press, New York, 1993, 595. 

Niscbk, F. and Riede, K. (2001). Bioacoustics of two cloud forest ecosystems in Ecuador compared to lowland rainforest with special emphasis on singing cricket species. In Epiphytes and canopy fauna, of the Otongan rain forest (Ecuador). Results of the Bonn Quito epiphyte project, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, volume 2, J. Nieder and W. Barthlott (eds). Books on Demand GmBH, pp. 217-242. 

Flower Scent Collection in Rain Forest Canopies... 

The canopy of the rain forest is the last unexplored world of plants. Botanists have been developing methods for approaching this final frontier (32) using tree-... 

Throughfall and litterfall from flooded forests represent a complex aspect of nutrient dynamics in floodplain lakes that has received little attention. Filoso (1996) measured wet deposition and throughfall from igapo forest of the Anavilhanas archipelago in the lower Negro River, and calculated that about two thirds of the rain that fell on floodplain lakes in the Anavilhanas was influenced by flooded forest canopy. The deposition of dissolved P increased about seven times after rain was... 

Simple logic dictates that if forest is cleared then the resulting decrease in evapotranspiration must lead to increased run-off, if precipitation remains the same in the short term. The problem can also be approached from the opposite point of view what effect has deforestation on run-off It should be noted that the forest canopy protects the forest floor from the direct impact of rain, while surface litter and organic matter helps to... 

More recent work has not confirmed the large proportion of stem flow. Work by Franken et al. (1982), carried out in typical Amazon high forest near Manaus, used a system of rain gauges in cleared areas and in the forest canopy, with an extensive series of stem flow collectors. They found that 77.7% of average precipitation reached the soil surface as throughfall, 22% of the rain was intercepted by the canopy, while stem flow only represented 0.3% of the total. 

In forested areas, rain intercepted by the tree canopy can have a different isotopic composition than rain in open areas (Saxena, 1986 Kendall, 1993 DeWalle and Swistock, 1994). On average, through fall during individual storms at a site in... 

An example of a highly efficient interception system is the canopy of a coniferous forest. The large specific surface area of pine and spruce trees exceeds that of broadleaved deciduous trees, giving them a high scavenging efficiency for radioactive aerosol particles. Pine needles have been acknowledged as useful monitors of atmospheric pollution (Eriksson et al., 1989). However, radionuclides will be redistributed in the forest ecosystem due to various removal mechanisms such as rain... 

Canopy drip (CD), i.e., rain falling on the forest floor after contact with leaves and branches. 

Foresters and hydrologists name the interception of rain drops by leaves and needles of trees rainfall interception (or sometimes canopy-interception however, this term is not to separate from cloud and fog interception, and should therefore not be used). Because of evaporation, interception of liquid water leads to loss of that precipitation for the drainage basin. 

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