Mission2006
Team3 - Flora
Jean Marie Downing
George Eng
Tanzeer Khan
Sarah Newman
2016/7/1
Juliana Perez
Shan Riku
Catherine Yao
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Our Team’s Goal & Time Line

What is the Amazon Rain Forest?
September 23- October 7

What are the Threats?
September 23 – October 7

Monitoring
October 7 – November 14

What Can We do?
October 7 – November 14
*After November 14 – Preparation Period for Final Presentation
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Before Research

-

The difference between flora and fauna
- Flora will cover all plants, fungi, and algae
- Fauna will be cover animals, monerans, and all other protists
About Tropical Rain Forest
The definition of tropical rain forest is those forests which
receives more than 2000mm rain per year
the coldest mean monthly temperature will not fall below 18 C.

About Amazonia
The world's largest tropical rainforest, spanning more than half of Brazil
Containing half of present-day rainforest.
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Before Research
Division of Layers

The Emergent Layer:
Contains the tallest trees in the rainforest(150~200 feet)

The Canopy:
The primary Layer of the rainforest(15~150 feet).

The Understury:
Seldom grow to more than 12 feet.Difficulty with
pollinization because of the lack of air movement.

The Forest Floor:
Almost no plants (because of 0-2% light & 100%
humidity)Few flowering plants, mosses, herbs, and fungi.
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What is the Amazon Rain Forest?
History

1.
2.
Factors to determine the state of rain
forest
Number of Plant Species
Vegitation
by examining the pollen or macrofossil of
representative plants.
by examining the extinctions and new appearances of
species
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What is the Amazon Rain Forest?
History
There were three major climate change in history of flora.

Cretaceous extinction event

Marked reduction in floristic diversity

Ecocene cooling event

Less effect on South Africa, which is the main reason of
the high generic diversity of Palmae in South America in
present-day.

The sudden cooling in 2.7 Ma
Cold period in 2.2~1.0 Ma


No desiccation, which enabled the survival of very
diverse rain forest
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What is the Amazon Rain Forest?
Biological Aspects

There are several different kinds of
rainforests.
1.
Tropical lowland evergreen rainforest
Tropical semi-evergreen rainforest
Montane rainforest
Heath forest
Peat Swamp forest
Freshwater swamp forest
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
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What is the Amazon Rain Forest?
Biological Aspects

1.
2.
3.
4.
Besides trees, there are many other kinds of
vegetation
Especially geared towards finding light:
Lower there live:
On the forest floor there live:
In forest succession:
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What are the Threats?
Logging
A monocyclic silvicultural system is used in
the Amazon rainforest. The results are:
 Shifting species composition
 Compacted soil
 Dammed streams
 Vulnerability to fires
 Encourages other activities, e.g. poaching,
land-clearing for agriculture
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What are the Threats?
Agriculture

This destroys the delicate soil profile. Rainforest
cycles the soil used so it is self-sustaining. But
crops using only some portions of the soil
intensively, therefore damage it. No more new
crops can be grown after a certain period (~5
years), and the forest cannot regrow in the
ruptured soil. Result: Rainforest destroyed for
more space, and used space is left as an infertile,
barren wasteland.
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What are the Threats?
El Nino/Climate Change





Evidence of El-Nino events
Effects of El-Nino events and relevance to
current climatic change
Vulnerability of epiphytes to climate
change
Affect on CAM cycles (CAM-idling)
Epiphyte role in rainforest and possible
monitoring tool
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What are the Threats?
Deforestation
There are two great causes:
 One is the demand of wood: the
governments sell logging concessions to
raise money for projects, to pay
international debt, or to develop industry.
 The other is the transformation of the
forests in surfaces dedicated to agriculture
and cattle ranch.
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What are the Threats?
Deforestation




Deforestation increases the amount of CO2 and other
trace gases in the atmosphere.
The deforestation of tropical rain forests is a threat to life
worldwide.
Deforestation may have profound effects on global
climate and cause the extinction of thousands of species
annually.
The future requires solutions based in solving the
economic crises of countries holding rain forests, as well
as improvement of the living conditions of the poor
people often responsible for deforestation.
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Future Plan
We Divide our group into…
 Monitoring
 Protection
We also continue characterizing the Amazon
Rain Forest (focused on Brazil)
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Contact Info

Website:
http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2006/tea
ms/r3/flora/index.html

Mail: rain3@mit.edu
Thank you!!!
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