Forests, which are the dominant terrestrial ecosystem on Earth, play an essential role in the planet’s life support system (Bonan, 2008). Besides providing basic ecological and environmental services, they also supply humanity with valuable goods and services (Pearce, 2001). It is therefore necessary to constantly monitor forest ecosystems in order to comprehend the various processes and factors that determine their ecology, function and patterns. This, in turn, will allow devising proper management
data on the ground from a relatively small section of a forest, and assume that their data would be an accurate representation of the forest as a whole. Today, studying forests hands-on is mostly done as ground truthing for data originally collected by remote sensing. There is a broad range of applications in forestry that remote sensing is incredibly helpful with. This paper will look at the application of remote sensing in estimating forest composition, detecting clear-cutting, the detection of
Today Forests are one of the most valuable resources on the planet today. Without forests it would be almost impossible for any living thing to survive. But, with this in mind many people destroy forests. It is as though they don’t even care that they are dooming themselves as well as the trees. Hopefully through this article I can help save the forest and help human kind, as well as all other organisms, by telling how important the forest is and how it functions. What is a Forest? A forest is more
Ecological Restoration of Forests and Fires One of the most predominate ecosystems is the forest community. Covering about one-fourth of the land area on Earth, forests consist mainly of trees and other woody vegetation, growing closely together. The trees can be large and densely packed, as they are in the coastal forests of the Pacific Northwest, or they can be relatively small and sparsely scattered, as they are in the dry tropical forests of sub-Saharan Africa. Forests are complex ecosystems that
Discussion Reproduction and passing on genetic and behavioral traits to an offspring is a common fundamental to all the species on this planet. When studying forest ecology, it is crucial to study the proportion of individuals surviving at each stage of their growth as the lives and mortality experienced in a species population describes a characteristic of the species in question. In the case of American beech and sugar maple, their attempt to produce seeds is analogous to entering lottery, where
wildlife habitats and food sources, forest management, increased water yield, insect control, and much more. Many believe that deer, elk, and other animals shy away from logging areas. This thought is understandable because of the commotion logging creates. However, the account previously presented is real and... ... middle of paper ... ...cies: Opposing Viewpoints. Ed. Brenda Stalcup. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc., 1996.130-131. "Forests, Fire and Logging : Setting the Record
2005: 43) An example of how social justice and equity needs to be addressed alongside a sustainability plan for the environment is the deforestation of rainforests in Indonesia. Forty years ago, Indonesia was known among scientists of human ecology as a land with exemplary sustainability in its agriculture and industry (Henley 2008: 273). However, a growing and uneven population distribution, large socio-economic inequalities, and a recent history of corrupt governing have led to severe problems
niches in variety of habitats. Epiphytic species can exist as 50% of the tree leaf mass and make up 30% to 50% of vascular plant diversity in tropical forests (Benzing 1990). It is thought that the epiphytic diversity in tropical forests allows an increased fauna diversity. Epiphytic species, while not agronomically important, play intricate roles in ecology. HISTORY Columbus wrote the first known documentation of an epiphytic species. Martinus de la Cruz, an Aztec Indian physician, illustrated the
Management of a 40 Acre Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum) Stand in Southern Michigan for Sustained Production of Sawtimber Sugar maple (Acer saccharum) is a hard maple used primarily for its lumber and sap. In fact, 9% of the hardwood sawtimber volume in the U.S. comes from this species (5). My client would like to begin extracting sawtimber from her 40 acre maple-dominated stand that has been unmanaged to this point. She sees a market for her sawtimber in the regional flooring industry, but would
“Does Deforestation of Tropical areas have an impact on global warming?” First of all I would have to say that yes it has a great impact on our global warming and I will go on to explain to you how it affects our planet. We as a whole have let the dollar get in the way of how our planet is affected, some would say at all costs. It is true we have refineries, car pollution, but most of all deforestation of tropical areas. In the National Geographic Magazine you will come to see and appreciate the
People have been deforesting the Earth for thousands of years, primarily to clear land for crops or livestock. Although tropical forests are largely confined to developing countries, they aren’t just meeting local or national needs; economic globalization means that the needs and wants of the global population are bearing down on them as well. Direct causes of deforestation are agricultural expansion, wood extraction (e.g., logging or wood harvest for domestic fuel or charcoal), and infrastructure
fixtures, musical instruments, millwork, cars, ships, boats, caskets, airplanes, foundry patterns, veneer, and plywood (Hill, 1952). In Costa Rica, the only population of Mahogany exists in the Guanacaste-Puntarenas region where the tropical dry forests occur. Both of the species' ranges overlap in this region, with Bigleaf Mahogany, S. macrophylla, extending from the Bolivian Amazon up the Atlantic and Gulf Coast to Mexico, while Pacific Coast Mahogany, S. humilis, ranges from Mexico down the Pacific
Nowadays, earth has been facing a series of severe environmental issues which require urgent attention to make the ecology friendly, and global warming is considered as the most vital one. Although some people doubt and disagree that global warming is happening, climate change is real and it is mainly influenced by human activities through the increased production of green house gases such as methane and carbon dioxide. Global warming has the effect of melting polar ice caps and glaciers, which will
In the time it takes to read this paper, an area of Brazil's rainforest larger than two hundred football fields will have been destroyed. The market forces of globalization are invading the Amazon, hastening the demise of the forest and thwarting its most committed stewards. In the past three decades, hundreds of people have died in land wars; countless others endure fear and uncertainty, their lives threatened by those who profit from the theft of timber and land. In this Wild West frontier of guns
Deforestation and Biodiversity While the loss of forests is clearly visible, a decline in biodiversity has a less apparent effect. The subtle loss of biodiversity fails to indicate the significance that fewer species in the ecosystem increases the fragility of life for all species. Despite the negative effects of deforestation and the consequential decline of biodiversity, trees are cut down for an economic and consumer benefit. Members of society need to determine how much economic cost they
Deforestation is a major concern in today’s society. The destruction of the world’s forest areas are leaving millions of acres uninhabitable. The varied species of animals and insects that use to live and thrive from these forests are rapidly becoming extinct. The destruction of the forest is also having a detrimental effect on the people through displacement thus forcing them to seek new living accommodations. Many of these people are loosing their heritage and cultures leaving them with a sense
The ecosystem I have chosen is tropical rainforest. In the following paragraphs, I am going to firstly introduced the structure of tropical rainforest in brief, with the second part of the plant ecology and last the diversity within this ecosystem. Geographical location- basically, tropical rainforest is roughly taking place within the latitude 28 degrees north or south of the equator, concentrated in South America at the same time, scattered in Africa and south Asia. The Peninsula de osa in Costa
Deforestation, defined by biologist Charles Southwick as "the destruction of forests; may involve clear-cutting or selective logging" (p. 365), is a predominantly human-driven process that is dramatically altering ecosystems worldwide. "Clear-cutting" involves the indiscriminant removal of every single plant and tree species from within a selected area. The other major process of deforestation, "selective logging," focuses removal efforts on only specific, predetermined tree species within a chosen
These dense, damp forests occur in Latin and South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. Although they (tropical rainforests) cover just seven percent of the earth’s surface they can provide habitat for 50-90 percent of its animal species. In 1990, tropical rainforests totaled some 1.7 billion hectares (Forest Alliance of British Columbia, 1996). Half of the world’s rainforests lie within the borders of Brazil, Indonesia, and Zaire. Tropical rainforests have 3 layers: the forest floor, the understory
communities worldwide, people depend on forests, for fuel wood-gathering, harvesting of wood and non-wood forest products, for larger-scale commercial purposes, habitat for more than half the world’s terrestrial species, clean water, and other important ecosystem services (De Groot et al., 2002, Santangeli et al., 2013, Chhatre and Agrawal, 2009). However, the forest biodiversity is continuously undergoing loss which directly or indirectly contributes to forest ecosystems being transformed and in some