Species Crisis : Baobab ( Adansonia ) Trees

Brazil’s rainforests and America’s rainforests are great examples of the negative effect that deforestation has on these specific areas. One of the rising challenges in our rapidly growing world is the destruction of rainforests and how it is slowly ruining the world that we live in. Deforestation has a lot of destructive impacts on the environment that is surrounding us, one of the most important being its effect on the climate. The fast rise in the world’s population, calling for high demand of resources, is only hastening the effects of deforestation, which can hopefully be put an end to through the enforcement of a handful of simple, key, and sustainable solutions.

As a result of deforestation and other causes, as few as 10,000 species go extinct every year, with a multitude lost in the rainforests across the world. The Amazon Rainforest, the largest rainforest in the world, houses roughly, “40,000 plant species, 427 mammals, 1,300 birds, 378 reptiles, and around 3,000 freshwater fish,” as well as more than 100,000 of invertebrate species (Amazon Wildlife). The rapid loss of the Amazon rainforest, precisely 17% in the last fifty years, critically cripples the biodiversity of the rainforest. To explain, every vehicle that destroys any sort of foliage is a loss to the animals that live in the forest. As known, every animal consumes a multitude of different plants or animals, and the more plants in the area,

The Baobab tree has a shiny and slick outside bark this adaptation lets the tree to reflect the bright lights during the hot seasons this allows it to stay cool in the Savanna sun. It’s smooth outside body is also used to keep elephants, monkeys and other small or large herbivores from climbing up the tree and eating its leaves.

The scale and pace of change is dramatic; for example, the extinction of species is occurring at around 100-fold pre-human rates4. The population sizes of vertebrate species have, on average, declined by half over the last 45 years5. More than 2.3 million km2 of primary forest has been felled since 20006. About

species lived from about four to three million years ago in Eastern Africa. They were much

g e n u s o f s​u b f a m i l y ​P h a c o c h o e r i n a e . T h e y a r e f o u n d i n o p e n a n d s e m i o p e n h a b i t a t s , e v e n i n q u i t e arid regions, in s​ub­Saharan Africa.​The two species were formerly considered conspecific under the scientific name Phacochoerus aethiopicus, but today this is limited to the d​esert warthog,​ while the best­known and most widespread species, the c​ommon warthog​is Phacochoerus africanus.

Primates, unlike humans are found only in tropical or subtropical regions of the Americas, African, and Asian continent. Primates come in different sizes and shapes. They range from Lemurs as small as, Madame Berthes Mouse Lemur to the largest primate living known as the Eastern Gorilla. Primates, similar to humans are species that play an important role in maintaining and influencing our ecological system. They maintain the forest system between animals and its resources by taking on various roles such as being herbivores, pollinators, and seed dispersers (Chapman & Peres, 2001). However, over time many species of primates have become endangered and are threatened with extinction due to human activities such as Habitat Destruction, Hunting/Bush meat, Pet Trade, and Diseases. “It has been estimated that more than 50% of all primate species are faced with some sort of threat” (Chapman & Peres, 2001). Leaving us with an increasing number of discovered and undiscovered primate species endangered or at the brink of extinction.

The Rainforests of the Atsinanana is a place like no other. The continent of Madagascar can be found 200 miles off the east coast of Africa and completed full separation from all other land masses more than 60 million years ago (Staff W., 2001). The island of Madagascar has lived in isolation and with isolation gives the Rainforests of Atsinanana an abundance of plants and animals found nowhere else in the world. This unique place is made up of six national parks and was approved by UNESCO committee in New Zealand (WWF, n.d.). The Rainforests of Atsinanana is currently on the list of world heritage sites in

Existing near the equator along countries such as Brazil and Costa Rica, this zone has a combination of warm temperatures, high humidities, and abundant precipitations. Factors like these define what the tropical zone is. For example, due to the high temperatures and frequent rainfalls, the soil is considered poor. This is so, because the temperature and the rainfall causes a quick decomposition instead of building up of organic materials in the soil. Therefore, once the tropical zone is altered by human activities, it is very hard to recover with the nutrient poor soil. In addition, it is expected that in the tropical zone there would be large trees. These large trees creates a closed canopy in which light just barely reaches the forest floor. Going along the topic of sunlight, it is a crucial abiotic factor in this zone. Consequently, there is competition among trees to obtain the limited amount of sunlight through the various vertical stratification of tree levels. Some key characteristics of trees in relation to their habitat is their ginormous height. In this zone, rainfall determines the vegetation. Thus, with the abundant rainfall, trees can reach up to fifty to sixty meters in height. Another key characteristic is their diversity. It has been reported that in a 2.5 acre land, there is approximately three hundred different species of trees. The main type of

One of the most growing environmental concerns of our planet is the loss of tropical forests. Tropical forests are depleting at an alarming rate. A rate where demand far exceeds the supply. Of all the forest habitats, none seems to be more threatened than the tropical rainforests, as the world loses up to 20 million hectares of these forests annually, an 80 percent increase over previous estimates. In 1950, 30 percent of the world 's surface was covered by rainforests. By 1975 this area had shrunk to 12 percent. Today, tropical forests account for about 8 percent of the planet 's surface, an area roughly equal to that of the United States, constituting slightly less than half their prehistoric cover. Findings have shown that Africa has lost 60 percent of its original rainforests and Central America and Southeast Asia have lost nearly two thirds.

Advocates for the preservation of these forests state that deforestation has devastating consequences including social conflict, extinction of plants and animals, and dangerous climate changes, and that local deforestation in these forests are causing damages that aren’t just local, but global. While opponents claim that tropical forests are destined to diminish as it is necessary for the growing human population to clear the natural landscape to make room for farms and pastures, to harvest timber for construction and fuel, to build roads and urban areas and to develop the economies of the often poor countries that surround the equator.

The tropical rainforest is as known for having the greatest variety of species on Earth. Specifically, more than fifty percent of all species such as trees, plants, animals, insects on the planet live in the rainforest. However, human clear trees off the land and use for other purposes, these activities straightly affects to biodiversity and animal habitat even leads to species extinction.

Furthermore, the flora and fauna are also impacted by the deforestation of the Amazon, the Amazon consist of the most biodiverse habitat. The Amazon consist of about forty thousand flora and more fauna; in fact, there are more than a million known and unknown species in the rainforest. The deforestation of the Amazon destroys the natural environment of these species and has resulted in an estimated fifty thousand species per year lost (“Deforestation in the Amazon”). Moreover, if the habitat of various species continues to be demolished at a rapid rate the species of the Amazon will become endangered and

We found that worldwildlife.org/threats/deforestation website to be reliable and informative. The World Wildlife Fund organization was founded in 1961, and has been one of the top organizations working in the field of the wilderness preservation. The information they display on this website gives a deeper look on the reasons for deforestation, how it is affecting our earth, and how we can help. The information is more cut and dry, and would not be as effective for kids than it is for adults. We found this information valuable in our research in rainforests.

The rate of deforestation is increasing and the tropical forests are falling at approximately 140,000 acres per day (Miller & Tangley 1991: xvi). The forests are crucial to the environment. They are important in minimizing erosion, providing a stable habitat for many animals, and helping to keep the environment clean. Deforestation has devastating effects, not only on the biological dependents within the depleted forests, but also on the surrounding human-populated communities.