Tropical rainforests

Second-growth tropical rainforest Costa Rica Harvest Fire... 

Figure 3. An undisturbed primary tropical rainforest in the eastern Amazon Basin, Brazil. Although these forests only comprise 7% of the earth s surface, they contain as much as 40% of all species and are significant global C sinks.

Figure 4. Once tropical rainforests are cut, they are often burned for conversion to cattle pasture or croplands. Emissions from these fires are significant sources of CO2, CH4, NO,, and other "greenhouse gasses.

Figure 5. Amazonian tropical rainforest following slash-and-bum activities. Land use activities result in dramatic losses in biological diversity as well as soils and nutrient pools. These losses result in declines in the productive capacity of these forests.

Parker, G.G. The Effect of Disturbance on Water and Solute Budgets of Hillslope Tropical Rainforest in Northeastern Costa Rica PhD Thesis Univ. Georgia Athens, Greece, 1985 161 p. 

Tropical rainforests and biological diversity had been a great concern at the time of the Brundtland report. Back in 1987, 900 million ha were left of the 1.6 billion original cover. Since then, we have lost over 200 million ha of rainforests, practically one-fourth of what existed then. Now, we have less than half of the original cover around 43% [3]. 

Kashman Y, Gustafson KR, Fuller RW, Cardellina JH, McMahon JB, Currens MJ, Buckheit RW Jr, Hughes SH, Cragg GM, Boyd MR. The calanolides, a novel HIV-inhibitory class of coumarin derivatives from the tropical rainforest tree, Calophylluwi lanigerum. J Med Chem 1992 35 2735-2743. 

The recovery of vegetation in a tropical rainforest in Puerto Rico — after plants were deliberately subjected to lethal doses of gamma radiation — closely resembled secondary succession after other types of disturbances, such as mechanical stripping and treatment with the Picloram herbicide (Jordan 1969). 

Tropical rainforest tree, Dacryodes excelsa, 4-280 Gy Growth stimulation 1... 

Richards, P.W. The Tropical Rainforest, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1952. 

Soejarto, D. D. and Farnsworth, N. R. (1989). Tropical rainforests potential source of new drugs. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 32 244-256. 

It has been estimated that only 5000 plant species have been studied exhaustively for possible medical applications. This is a minor fraction of the estimated 250,000 to 300,000 plant species on our planet, most of which are located in tropical rainforests. That we know little or nothing about much of the plant kingdom has raised justified and well-publicized concern, for as these forests are being destroyed, also being destroyed are species that might yield useful medicines. 

How is the burning of tropical rainforests a triple threat to weather patterns ... 

Gray JE, Holroyd GH, van der Lee FM, Bahrami AR, Sijmons PC, Woodward FI, Schuch W, Hetherington AM (2000) The HIC signalling pathway links CO2 perception to stomatal development. Nature 408 713-716 Greenwood DR, Scarr MJ, Christophel DC (2003) Leaf stomatal frequency in die Australian tropical rainforest tree Neolitsea dealbata (Lauraceae) as a proxy measure of atmospheric pCO(2). Palaeogeogr Palaeoclimatol Palaeoecol 196 375-393... 

Tropical rainforest tree and Malaysian tree A number of natural products have been reported to interact with reverse transcriptase, i.e., baicalin, avarol, avarone, psycho-trine, phloroglucinol derivatives and, in particular, calanolides (from the tropical rainforest tree, Calophyllum lanigerum) and inophyllums (from the Malaysian tree, Calophyllum inophyllum). 

The PTR-MS has been developed and used for a number of different applications. For example, Lindinger, Hansel and Jordan (1998) described the monitoring of metabolic processes in the human body by analyzing breath the monitoring of fruit and meat aging and the decay of vegetation. This monitoring is done by PTR-MS analysis of VOCs emitted, and the analysis of trace components of ambient air. Crutzen et al. (2000), Wameke et al. (2001), Williams et al. (2001), and Poschl et al. (2001) described measurements made by PTR-MS from an aircraft over the tropical rainforests of Surinam. 

Poschl, U., Williams, J., Hoor, P. it al. (2001) High acetone concentrations throughout the 0-12 km altitude range over the tropical rainforest in Surinam. Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry, 38 (2), 115-32. 

Lesack, L. F. W., and J. M. Melack. 1996. Mass balance of major solutes in a rainforest catchment in the Central Amazon Implications for nutrient budgets in tropical rainforests. 

Biotic regulation in atmosphere-land C02 exchange in tropical rainforests that demonstrate a vast biodiversity of species is still poorly studied (Bampfylde et al., 2005). 

Lorieri D, Elsenbeer H. 1997. Aluminum, iron and manganese in near-surface waters of a tropical rainforest ecosystem. Sci Total Environ 205 13-23. 

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