Geography Rainforests (copy)

Knowledge/Understanding: Things needed to know: (Make flashcards on this)

Where rainforests are located.

The climate of the rainforest and why it is like that.

Can name and describe rainforest layers.

The nutrient cycle and the characteristics of rainforest soil.

The water cycle.

How and why plants adapt to the rainforest.

How and why animals adapt to the rainforest.

Contrast different ways of life in the rainforest.

Know about different types of people who live in the rainforest.

Why rainforests are important.

How and why rainforests are under threat.

How uses of the rainforest can lead to conflict.

Lesson 1:

Key characteristics of tropical rainforests:

1. Low nutrient soil

2. High biodiversity

3. High temperatures

4. High rainfall

Rainforests have low nutrient soil because of how it is sucked up by plants quickly as the battle fought by many species for little nutrients is hard. High temperatures because of its location and high rainfall due to convectional rainfall (more detail in lesson 2).

Tropical rainforests are typically located along the equator and in between the two tropics. Countries with rainforests include: Brazil, Democratic republic of Congo and Indonesia.

1. Interpret maps that show information about the rainforest (i.e. rainfall rates):

   When trying to interpret information on a map, you should use the key or legend which tells you what colour corresponds to what amount of the unit of measurement.

   Then, you try and spot trends, for example: there is more rainfall in the north because …

2. Image annotation:

   When annotating an image geographically you should point out the three types of geography: human, physical and environmental geography. Clear lines and labels to indicate what things are and annotations are to add information so the labels have to have information or indication of what the thing you have labelled is. You should also describe it geographically.

   Example of annotating geographical image:

   

Rainforests are located around the equator and within the two tropics where more sunlight is radiated. Examples of rainforest regions include Brazil, DRC and Indonesia.

Lesson 2:

Climate graphs are graphs that show both the temperature and rainfall of a certain region. They are useful as they show all the data in one place and are easy to read.

Climate is different to weather as weather is for a short-term basis (daily) but climate is on a long term basis (monthly). So, climate graphs show monthly periods.

The climate of the rainforest consists of high temperatures and high rainfall. The temperatures are so high because they are located near the tropics and along the equator because at the equator the sun is directly overhead therefore the rays are more concentrated, in comparison to the poles which are at the curve of the earth and the sun’s energy would be balanced.

The climate of rainforests are extremely rainy because of a process called CONVECTIONAL RAINFALL. It happens because the heat of the sun warms water on the land’s surface, causing it to evaporate. As it rises, it cools down and condenses to form precipitation.

Tropical rainforests also do not have distinctive seasons like the UK because of the earth’s tilting, because the UK is not in the centre when the UK is tilted towards the sun, it makes the summer, and away from the sun, it makes winter because of the different concentration of the sun’s rays. But, because tropical rainforests are near the equator so they always receive direct sunlight and therefore have no distinctive seasons as they always get sun and rain because high temperatures result to high rainfall due to the water cycle.

LESSON 3: Layers of the rainforest

Forest floor: Bottom layer of the rainforest. Only 2% of sunlight reaches there and it is home to dead plant matter that release nutrients.

Shrub layer: 0-10m tall. Smaller plants grow in this layer; they grow near openings and rivers. Plants that grow here include orchids and animals that live here include alligators and jaguars. Plants are also less densely packed because they cannot grow large due to limited sunlight. Plants in the shrub layer also grow near openings because of how low sunlight is and how hot it is so all the nutrients come from those rivers and openings.

Under Canopy: 10-20m tall. Made of young trees that grow quickly in the intense battle for nutrients/sunlight. Home to sloths and howler monkeys.

Canopy: 20-30m tall. Home to many species of birds and the trees’ leaves act as umbrellas to the lower layers. The trees are tall and straight with few branches. Also home to lianas which are long woody vines and use trees as support and epiphytes which grow on other plants and steal their nutrients! The canopy is also the thickest layer in the rainforest and home to 80% of life because food is abundant.

Emergents: 30-40m (up to 60m) tall. Home to the tallest trees with wide roots which can grow to 1.5 metres wide. Home to the balsa tree, the fastest growing tree in the rainforest but it very light in weight. Also home to many birds and butterflies and leaves in the emergents are horizontal to absorb the most sunlight possible.

Nutrients can be so abundant that species in the canopy only survive by soaking up nutrients from the air and rain water!

Always remember to consider the three types of geography when answering questions.

Three types of geography:

• Human geography

• Physical geography

• Environmental geography

Lesson 4: Nutrient cycling

Rainforest soil is nutrient poor, thin and has a high iron content. This is because of the nutrient cycle (more details further in the text) uptake of nutrients by trees and plants, washing away of nutrients by rainfall but the nutrients are supplied by litter usually which is decaying plant matter.

Nutrient cycling in the rainforest:

The three main stores of nutrients where the nutrients will “sit” for a while are: litter (decaying/dead plant material on the forest floor), biomass (trees/shrubs) and the soil.

Rainfall can add a reasonable amount of nutrients to the litter. (1) (rainfall to litter)

But when it rains the rain water will run along the ground and remove some nutrients from the litter, this process is called run off. (5) (litter being destroyed)

Biomass adds some nutrients when their trees’ leaves fall to the floor to become litter. This is how biomass turns into litter and more nutrients and this process is called fall out. (2) (biomass to litter)

But, litter can break down and lots of its nutrients go to the soil. This process is called decay. (3) (litter to soil)

Little amounts of nutrients can leave the soil when it rains and the rain water washes nutrients down and out of the soil. This process is called leaching. (4) (soil being destroyed)

But, a small amount of nutrients can be added to the soil when rocks decompose because of the atmosphere, giving its nutrients to the soil. This process is called weathering (of rocks). (7) (rocks to soil)

Biomass can draw up a large amount of nutrients from the soil due to their roots actually being in the soil which gives the biomass the soil’s nutrients. (6) (soil to biomass)

All of these processes of gathering nutrients from different things for different stores all come together to become one big nutrient cycle.

This cycle can be useful to understand where nutrients can go from one place to another. For example, the nutrients of rocks are weathered to the soil and the roots of biomass suck up the nutrients and the leaves of the biomass will fall and decay into litter giving the soil more nutrients or getting ran off by the rainfall. The cycle is extremely useful and is like a route for the nutrients and where they go. It is important to bear in mind that, some processes gather more nutrients than others which can affect the routes of nutrients.

In theory:

Decay and trees drawing up nutrients are the most effective for nutrient gathering.

Rainfall adding nutrients in quite effective for nutrient gathering.

Fall out, run off, weathering and leaching are less effective in gathering/destroying nutrients.

The rainforest nutrient cycle is rapid. The hot and damp conditions on the forest floor can help the speed of decay in dead plant material which provides plentiful nutrients that can be easily absorbed by plant roots when the nutrients reach the soil. These nutrients are always in high demand because of the speed in which rainforest plants grow. The nutrients are not in the soil for long and stay close to the surface of the soil. Rainforest soil also does not make good farmland because of how vulnerable it is to erosion when plants are removed and how the soil always contains low nutrients.

THE WATER CYCLE:

When heavy convectional rainfall occurs because of the amount of plants in the rainforest some trees actually intercept that water and use it as nutrients. Some rain will reach the ground and the trees take up the water. If not, the water will evaporate and convectional rainfall follows.

Lesson 5/6: Plant adaptations and case study figures

What are adaptations?

Adaptations are features organisms have to survive in different climates.

Examples of plant adaptations:

• Buttress roots and still roots turn shallow to soak up nutrients because of how thin the rainforest soils are. Both buttress and still roots, also play a part in stabilising trees in the canopy.

• Red leaves can turn red when they are young to give protection from sunlight while their internal organs are developing. The red layer acts as a sunscreen, basically.

• Lianas use other trees to climb up the rainforest canopy to get as much sunlight as they can.

• Leaf angling - leaves arranged at different angles - is used so that a plant avoids shading its own leaves as the competition for sunlight is intense.

• Drip tips - leaves have a waxy surface to allow the excess rainwater to run-off easily to prevent algae, which blocks sunlight.

• Epiphytes live on the surface of other plants to help them get more sunlight - similar to lianas. And, epiphytes are not parasites so they can grow on other plants without harm.

• Trees have thin bark to help growth and they do not need thick bark as they do not need to prevent moisture

• Some plants attract insects using nectar and trap them and the walls of the plant are usually waxy killing the insect using microbes and enzymes giving the plant more nutrients. This plant is called the pitcher plant.

• Mimosa pudica wilts its leaves when touched to scare off predators and it deflects water too, to prevent waterlogging.

• Flowers have brightly coloured petals to attract attention for nectar.

TOP TIP FROM MISS CAMPBELL: Always put lots of points and explanations during high-mark questions as they are always worth a mark and add examples too; statistics and figures. Use acroynm TEA or OBE for graphs (Trend - what is the trend, Evidence - give figures, Anomaly - different) and PEE/PE/PEEL for high marks. Use the three types of geography to help. (Human, Physical, Environmental) Or reasons: Environmental, social, economic.

Why do plants have to adapt; what challenges are in the rainforest that plants have to face?

They have to adapt due to the climate and how moist and damp and humid it is, with high rainfall and low sunlight (2%) in forest floors and shrub layers. Challenges plants in the rainforest have to face include: ensuring future generations survive, avoiding pests and disease, competition for resources like sunlight and nutrients and avoiding waterlogging.

Around 50% of all known species of animals and plants live in the rainforest.

When old trees die it opens space for little plants to take over.

Only 2% of light reaches forest floor.

Balsa tree is the fastest growing tree in the rainforest.

Rainforests cover 2% of the planet.

Lesson 7: Animal adaptations

There are 6 key major types of adaptations:

Camouflage - a technique to disguise yourself, which can be useful to avoid predators. Examples: Sloths have green algae which grows on its fur to camouflage to avoid predators and being attacked or the leaf tailed gecko.

Poison and bright colours - bright colours scare off predators and poison can kill too, which can also be useful to scare off/avoid predators. Examples: poison dart frogs are only 1.5cm in length but holds enough poison to kill 100 humans!

Prehensile tails - are tails that allow animals to swing around easily, practically using it as a fifth limb. They also allow ease of living in the canopy where it can be used to hang and swing onto trees. It is useful to avoid flooding and fires and allows access to foods. Examples: sloths and spider monkeys have prehensile tails and live in the canopy.

Picky eating - reduces the competition for food as animals can eat some foods that other animals cannot because of diet and accessibility. Examples: toucans snatch hard-to-reach fruit which is not accessible to some other animals as toucans have long and narrow beaks which give it a slight advantage.

Reduced size - advantageous due to limited space in the rainforest therefore animals need to be smaller to move quicker. Example: frogs and birds

Nocturnal living - advantageous due to the high levels of competition during daytime so if you can exploit the night when everyone else is sleeping then you have less competition for resources. Example: sloths and bats

Other animal adaptations and examples:

Piranhas: super fast swimming and sharp teeth to catch prey and avoid predators.

Anteater (type of bird): sharp beaks to crack open and crunch nuts and seeds.

Gibbons: can rotate their shoulder joint completely to use it as a hook which can hold their whole body weight, they live in the canopy which gives the “hook” a chance to thrive.

Spider Monkeys: small thumbs to use hands as hooks, they also live in the canopy which gives the "hook” chances to thrive too.

Sloths: triple stomach to preserve energy from little foods.

Lesson 8/9/10: Living in the rainforest; rural vs urban

RURAL AREAS:

Rural areas are usually countryside areas.

We need to be careful not to make generalisations when talking about emerging developing countries like Brazil with wide variations of success and poverty.

There are still many tribes in the rainforest, especially in remote areas who have adapted to a sustainable way of life.

Sustainable means being able to meet the needs of the current generations without compromising for future generations.

KEY SKILL: Sketch maps

Sketch maps are supposed to be simple but still reflects what information you have to show. Sketch maps are usually a diagram for the landscape. A good thing to do is to highlight only the key information of something along with including:

• A north arrow like every map

• A title; brief summary of your map

• Key features; countries, mountains, rivers

• Annotations to explain what is happening

• Labels

• Could be drawn from an angle; bird’s eye view, side view?

These maps are usually not drawn to scale but don’t make it too crazy; i.e making Hong Kong look 100x bigger than China or something like that.

KEY SKILL: Climate graph plotting:

Must need features on a climate graph:

• Scale

• Title

• Axis labels

• Plotting accurately

• Using a pencil and ruler

• Easy to read

Optional: Extra information; average monthly temp/rainfall by month

One rural tribe in the rainforest is called the Kayapo tribe which have their ways of living and traditions.

• The Kayapo tribe live on the Xingu river

• The Kayapo village is usually a patch of flat land which has a circle of wooden buildings where families live.

• They have interesting traditions like red and black face paint, feathered head dresses, ear plugs and wooden discs which are all made from natural materials in the forest.

• They live by hunting, fishing and collecting food from the forest. They are subsistence farmers which means they only grow enough crops for themselves as they have no trading sources.

• They also use shifting cultivation to farm:

Shifting cultivation is started when a clearance is made by cutting down trees and burning the vegetation. This is called slash and burn. Crops are planted in that area and within four or five years the soil gets exhausted and the harvest gets poorer and poorer. When it is like that the clearing is abandoned and the farmers moved on. The clearing then grows over and the natural forest returns!

• The Kayapo are also really conscious of how to use and care about the forest. Plants and trees are used as building materials and all of their paints are made form plants. They use nine species of stingless bees to produce honey and medicines are made from over 650 different forest plants. Spare food is traded to keep waste minimal and small-scale farming is used. They also put limits on the number of species used too!

Should we contact tribes in the Amazon?

If we do it could be a tourist attraction, resourceful area and/or give high quality healthcare and add government protection to their areas.

But, it could spread diseases to tribes, violent clashes and tribal people may not be able to communicate with the world and adapt to the real world and could make their homes a target for logging, oil farming, logging etc.

A true story is when John Allen Chau is believed to have been hit with a volley of arrows when trying to visit a 30,000 year old tribe which aggressively resists outsiders. Which could make this even harder!

URBAN

Manaus is a fast growing city in the north-west of Brazil along the amazon river.

Brazil is an emerging developing country so it is neither rich nor poor. It is also a country experiencing fast economic growth and 87% of their population live in cities like Rio de Janeiro. That means many people are having to experience rural to urban migration, which means moving from the rural countryside to the urban city. Many new migrants in Manaus live on the edge of the city in favelas (shanty towns) where rainforest is cut down to make way for new houses.

There are many reasons why people migrate, they might do so for financial, social or family reasons and/or social, economic and environmental reasons. These are broadly categorised into:

Pull factors - positive things that ATTRACT PEOPLE to a particular place.

Push factors - negative things that make people want to MOVE AWAY.

Intervening obstacles - factors that make it harder to migrate.

Reasons to stay at the original place.

Examples of:

Pull factors - education, job opportunities, safety, opportunities in general

Push factors - war, politics, bad transport, crime

Intervening obstacles - visas, seas and bodies of water, hard to move, racism

Things that could make it easier to migrate are:

• Family are already there; there is already a ‘base’

• Government help; supplying favelas

• Good transport links

It is hard to make decisions for people and whether they should move or not. When doing so, first highlight the four broad categories of reasons, then see how much weight do they hold or how important it is and consider and compare. When comparing always remember point, explanation. Add evidence if needed.

Practice comparing rural to urban.

Lesson 11: Why is rainforest important?

It is important because of how biodiverse it is, how many resources it produces, its role in the carbon and water cycle, erosion and flooding and how many tribes live there. We will delve into more detail.

Biodiversity: Rainforests contain about half of the existing plant and animal species in the whole world! (That is a major case study fact) They also contain a third of the world’s bird species and 90% of its invertebrates. The remaining African rainforests contain more animals and plant species than anywhere else on the continent. In 2.5 acres of the Amazon there could be 300 different tree species compared to 40 in the whole of the UK! 2.5 acres could also contain 1500 species of plants!

Medicines: There are hundreds of plants in the rainforest that are used in modern medicines. Specifically 25% of all of them are taken from plants in the rainforest. Because 20% of plants are at risk of extinction and only 1% of plant species have been studied a lab in London called Kew Gardens are taking DNA samples to regrow these plants. For example the drug taken from the rosy periwinkle of Madagascar called Vincristine allows 80% remission from childhood leukaemia and curare can be used as a muscle relaxant in small doses.

Foods: 80% of the world’s diet originated from rainforest plants and many foods are still being discovered! Foods that come from the rainforest include: 3000 types of fruits, coffee, rice, potatoes and this special fruit called the peach palm of Brazil which has twice the food value of banana and more protein than maize.

Erosion and flooding: During heavy downpours, the mass of vegetation in the rainforest catches and holds much of the rain, then disposes of it through evaporation and transpiration - the process of plants releasing water vapour from their stomata - it acts like a bog umbrella breaking the force of rain and protecting the ground’s surface. Where trees are cut down in large numbers, this natural protection is removed and soil erosion increases and nutrients and minerals are washed away. Trees also help to control the amount of water that is held in the soil and it helps prevent flooding because if the rainfall patterns changed to due logging, there could be flooding because there is no barrier from the soil.

People: Tribes in the rainforest have lived for 40,000 years in Asia but in African rainforests the sights of human settlement are no more than 3,000 years old. There are around 1,000 indigenous tribes in the rainforests of the world. They have developed ways of life that allow them to use the forest without destruction. Lots of people are currently trying to exploit rainforest land for logging, plantation, oil and hydroelectric dams. European settlers have been unsuccessful due to their lack of immunity to diseases.

Lesson 12: Why is there conflict in the rainforest?

Conflict can be caused by social, economic and environmental reasons. Usually there are lots of different types of people that use the tropical rainforest, such as:

• Farmers and cattle ranchers (cattle ranchers are loggers who take down the rainforest to add more space for cattle)

• Loggers

• Dam builders

• Construction workers

• Miners

• Tribes

And then you have the “preventers” of negative uses:

• Environmental activists

• Environmental charities

• Government

This can create conflict due to all the different opinions and usages of the rainforest; loggers and dam builders and cattle ranchers have to cut down land and cause deforestation for their jobs but environmental activists do not approve of that as they would like to preserve the rainforest and live sustainably.

KEY WORD: SUSTAINABLE - Development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising for future generations.

A true case study on conflict leading to drama is: Chico Mendez. Chico was an environmental activist in the 1980s who had courage to step up and protest for rainforest rights, which had the domino effect on the present day. Chico has publicised and made his opinions known on why cattle ranching is bad, why shifting cultivation destroy the forest, how logging damages the world and more. Until, he made a cattle rancher feel so unsafe on if he found out what he was doing, that he killed Chico as 80% of deforestation is made by cattle ranchers.

CASE STUDY FACTS:

• 80% of deforestation is caused by making room for cattle.

• 80% of Mahogany wood sold in the UK is from the Amazon.

• Dams destroy ecosystems as they cause coastal erosion and loss of nutrients at the estuary.

Lesson 13: Rainforest threats

It can be very difficult to keep track of threats to the rainforest as often areas are huge and the dense vegetation makes it challenging to travel through it. This is where remote sensing and satellite images come into play; everyone can keep a close eye on whether rainforests have been damaged and can tell us what is happening in rainforests in an instant and we can even estimate the amount of lost trees!

THREAT 1: HYDROELECTRIC DAMS

Dams create hydroelectric power. This is electricity created by water running through turbines in the dam. A positive is that it produces electricity without producing greenhouse gas emissions so it has a smaller impact on the environment. But, a negative is that you have to flood land to create a dam.

Around 400 square kilometers have been flooded by the Samuel Hydroelectric Plant which means around 400 million trees were lost in the creation of the dam. If we compared the region from 1984 to present day, there would be huge differences.

THREAT 2: MINING

Carajas is a mine, a mine is where minerals are dug out of the ground which opens deep holes in the ground which is called an open cast mine. Human features can take over these rural regions because the miners have to live at the site too. It can cause civilisation and CO2 emissions along with transport methods that could be a threat.

Iron is extracted from that mine and turned into steel. 300,000 tonnes of iron is mined daily and the trucks are the size of houses! And when they get enough iron, they plan to turn it back into a rainforest and protect it which makes it very sustainable. The company have also paid for lots of resources like conservation rangers, vehicles and helicopter support, hoping for profit.

THREAT 3: PALM OIL

• Palm oil is used in chocolate, shampoo, toothpaste, car fuel and detergent.

• The bad thing of palm oil production is forest destruction to make palm oil.

• Indonesia is a high palm oil producer and is under threat through palm oil extraction; 15% of all known species of plants and animals are in Indonesia.

• Only 400 Sumatran tigers are left in the wild.

• Problems this also causes is land conflicts, forest fires and displacement of citizens.

• Peat lands store 35 billion tonnes of carbon and it gets released when there are problems so the trees can turn them into oxygen/

• We are linked to palm oil because the extracted palm oil is sold to traders and sold to companies then sold to us in the supermarket.

• Traders have changed and become more sustainable by cleaning up supply chains.

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