Orchids

Family: Orchidaceae

Orchids have adapted well to life in the canopy layer. They spread their roots spread over a large part of the tree they grow on in order to absorb as much water and neutrinos as possible. They have a second stem where they store extra water for when there are large dry periods. Orchids produce thousands of tiny sticky seeds in order to spread as much as possible. To make up for the lack of nutrients that orchids get from the soil they create symbiotic relationships with animals or have mechanisms to catch debris that falls from plants above. Orchids usually grow in cracks, crannies, crevasses, groves and pockets where organic debris has collected over time.
If there were to be a lot more rain in the canopy layer then the orchids would not need to have their roots spread over such a large span of the tree trunk. this would allow for more orchids to grow. If this were to happen then there would be a greater amount of orchids in the rainforest, and then animals may not be able to get to the bugs and bark of the tree the orchids are growing on. This would also mean that the trees would not get all the nutrients that they need as the orchids would be blocking the way for much of them.

Alexandra Wierenga

Flagellates

Kingdom: Protista

Group: Mastigophora

Categories: Phytomastigophora (resembles plants) and Zoomastigophora (resembles animals)

Flagellates are a protozoa, both plant and animal, which spends most of its existence moving or feeding with flagella. It is the most widespread, single-celled protist with one or more flagella which is used for the movement of the flagellate through the liquid they are in. Some Flagellates live as colonial entities, while others are a single cell. Most of them are free-living, while some are parasitic or pathogenic for animals and humans, and they are able to feed autotropically as well as heterotrophically. Their reproduction is usually either asexual, by logitudinal splitting, or sexual.

A group of Flagellates like bacteria ingest partially digested foods rather than whole foods, and are used to determine BOD levels in water or wet environments. Therefore, Flagellates require wet, cool environments such as lagoons and environments with large amounts of soluble food.

Huge increases in temperatures is a climate change that could effect Flagellates because the water or liquid they are living in could heat up. Also, major decreases in temperature could effect them as well because their environment could freeze over, not allowing them to move around and feed. Flagellates are both plant and animal, so if anything were to happen to the environment that would effect plants and animals, such as high winds or again temperatures, then the Flagellates are sure to possibly be effected as well in the same way. The only effect this organism would have on the whole diversity if it were effected itself, would be that the Rain Forest could not be used to determine their BOD levels. If biologists need to figure out the BOD levels in a Tropical Rain Forest, then this organism should definitely be preserved.

Abby Leake

Agrobacterium Tumefaciens

Kingdom: Eubacteria
Phylum: Proteobacteria
Class: Alpha Proteobacteria
Order: Rhizobiales
Family: Rhizobiaceae
Genus: Agrobacterium

Agrobacterium Tumefaciens, a soil borne pathogen, is a gram negative, motile, rod shaped bacterium responsible for creating plant tumors called Crown Galls disease that affects all species of plants. They are soft, white protrusions found at the base of a plant stem that creates a swelling or separate mass of plant tissue.
Although Agrobacterium Tumefaciens creates diseases in plants, it is also known as a useful gene, as it can be used as a delivery system by carrying and insterting genes into targeted plant DNAs with extremely high success. It is one of the major methods of choice for transforming plant cells, that many biologists are still depending on today. This bacterium requires a wounded to become attached, and cool temperatures to survive, but not temperatures that are as cold as the winters, for then it could not. It also needs a specific mechanism to enable it to determine if a plant is suitable for infection or not.
Plants are more susceptible to extreme environmental conditions, such as a major decrease in temperature and high winds, when infected with Agrobacterium Tumefaciens. These climate changes can effect the plants by causing them to become wounded, which is the only way the bacterium can enter. Therefore, these changes have a negative impact on the plants but a positive impact on the Agrobacterium Tumefaciens. Although, depending on the speed of the winds or how much the temperature did in fact decrease, Agrobacterium Tumefaciens can be effected by having no plants to attach to. This would mean no more acts of transferring DNA to other plants. Biologists highly depend on this organism as their major mechanism, because it does not require movement and integration of DNA.
If the plants were destroyed, everything would be affected. The rain forest would not have its famous population of many varieties of plants, and it would not b much of a forest anymore. Preserving this Agrobacterium Tumefaciens species is imprtant because without it, many studies and conclusions about plants and their DNA would not be performed or made, but lost.

Abby Leake

Azotobacter Vinelandii

Kingdom: Eubacteria
Phylum: Proteobacteria
Class: Gamma
Proteobacteria
Order: Pseudomonadales
Family: Pseudomonadaceae
Genus: Azotobacter

Azotobacter Vinelandii is a free-living bacterium that fixes nitrogen into the soil. It is tolerant to high salts and thrives in alkaline soils. It is an organism that is less effective in soils with poor organic matter content, and is one of the heaviest breathing. Azotobacter requires cool areas with temperatures that are lower than 35 degrees Celsius, and large amounts of organic carbon to survive. It also requires calcium for nitrogen fixation, oxygen for its growth, and the presence of organic nitrogen, micro-nutrients and salt to enhance its abilities.
Azotobacter is influenced by other micro-organisms in the soil. An example of an organism that effects the Azotobacter population would be cephallosporium, which restricts its growth. Other organisms can stimulate the bacteria, to increase the nitrogen by it. Also, when Azotobacter is applied to seeds, germination is improved, creating control over plant diseases. Azotobacter is important to preserve because of the fact that it can control plant disease, because it improves germination and plant growth as well as because it can act as a biological control agent, that produces substances which check plant pathogens.
Severe change in temperature, would be an example of the climate change that could effect Azotobacter, because if the temperature were to become higher or warmer than 35 degrees Celsius, then the organism could not grow or possibly die. It would not be good for the Tropical Rain Forest because it would create a decrease in germination and plant growth, which is important for keeping the size of the forest the way it is.

Abby Leake

The Jaguar

Kingdom: Animalia
Family: Panthera Onca

The Jaguar is one of the great cat hunters. Found in places like the Amazon River Basin, Pantanal in Brazil and other areas of the Tropical Rainforests this species of the cat family needs a diverse habitat for survival; this is referred to as a 'Landscape Species'. For examples areas like Southern and Central America are teeming with Jaguars.. Its natural abilities allow it to climb trees for catching prey as well as on the forest floor. Its habitat is also located in areas with plenty of water like wetlands, rivers and lakes as the Jaguar is an amazing swimmer. Essentially all the jaguar needs is a 'healthy habitat' to live in. In short this means that the soil must be healthy, so that vegetation can grow as it should, so that herbivores can eat it. These creatures can than have a plentiful and healthy population for the carnivores to hunt. Healthy soil also leads to clean watering holes.
The biggest area that climate change affects for the Jaguar is of course its habitat. The sad part is, the Jaguars habitat is everything to it. It is not a picky predator therefore the health of its habitat dictate its choice and amount of food. So if temperatures rise and plants can't grow properly, the Jaguar loses out on much of its prey that are herbivores. If rainfall is reduced its watering holes which are very important to its health and its food supplies are crippled. If there are weather fluctuations such as more rain, cooler, or large storms occur, this can affect the health of the overall environment of the Jaguar, affecting the health of the Jaguar itself.
For such a strong creature, the Jaguar is seemingly very delicate. It depends on biodiversity and the health of that environment to survive. Take that away and you are harming the beautiful creature. The Jaguar is so important to preserve because it for one, helps balance out the populations of creatures. Like any predator it kills off some other creatures like for example, the red eyed tree frog so that, that species doesn't become over abundant and throw off kilter the balance in the ecosystem. A Jaguar living in the area also means to scientist that this is a healthy ecosystem and therefore is a measure on how things are being damaged, where and how it can be changed.


Sarah Wilkins

The Red Eyed Tree Frog

Kingdom: Animalia
Family: Aaglychnis Calidryas
Class: Amphibia
Order: Anura

The red eyed tree frog is a type of carnivorous frog, only located in the neotropical rainforests of Central America. The red eyed tree frog will eat just about anything from grasshoppers to very small mice to its own species, small frogs. Essentially its not a picky eater but is the type of creature that in many ways is like 'waste management'. The red eyed tree frog keeps down the population levels of animals that many other creatures wouldn't bother with. It spends most of its life in trees, sleeping on the undersides of leaves during the day as it is nocturnal and climbing throughout the trees even having part of its mating process in the trees! The other half takes place in cool water places so that the female can hydrate herself and her eggs.
Much like many other Tropical Rainforest creatures its habitat revolves around trees. It lives in the higher branches, catching most of its diet there and hides from predators in the tree canopy. Its habitat will of course consist of some kind of watering hole as well. Deforestation and rainfall are the two biggest concerns for the red eyed tree frog with temperature rising coming in at a close third. Only because it needs plenty of moisture in its skin for survival, but if there is water around and the shade from the trees, makes the a minor threat compared to the other two. Though, as the temperature rises and rainfall decreases so will the watering holes. This means that not only will they not have an area to cool down but hydrating themselves in water is a necessary part to their mating cycle so with less watering areas, there will be less red eyed tree frogs born each year. On top of that, with deforestation the other aspect of their habitat is being destroyed so it won't be able to support such a large population and many of them will be lost to predators and of course the fact that many of the creatures they hunt and their homes will be eradicated from the areas they populate.
Without the red eyed tree frog, there will be an issue of pest control. Grasshoppers and insects as well as other small mammals will have less predators hunting them so there populations will grow but the area might not be able to sustain them. Many of them will feed on vegetation causing it decline, which will affect the soil, therefore affect the future growth of vegetation as well as push a dent in the diets of other animals feeding off the same foods. Another thing that will be affected is the commercial protection of Tropical Rainforest around the globe as the red eyed tree frog is a staple in the advertising community, representing the colourful beauty available in the Tropical Rainforests. Without creatures like this being shown, people lose interest citing 'nothing special' or just not noticing as much. Like when a lead model gets taken from a 'L'Oreal' campaign, the gross amounts of money coming into to do anything it can to help the situation occurring in the Tropical Rainforests, will suffer.


Sarah Wilkins

The Toucan

Kingdom: Animalia
Family: Ramphastas Swainsonim

The Toucan is a brightly coloured bird with a long bill, that is commercially famous and one of the most well known of the animals in the Tropical Rainforest. Its main diets consists of tree fruits, which the hollowed out bill helps to eat, as well as sometimes shrubs or smalls snakes and lizards seen on the forest floor. It makes its nest in holes in trees, usually around some type of watering hole.
Climate change affects trees. In simple terms as the temperature increases it causes a higher need for hydration for trees and their leaves, buds and seeds to hydrate themselves. Except this higher temperature causes the land to be drier. Meaning the amount of rain fall in the area decreases Therefore as the trees die off so do the available habitats for the Toucan. The biggest issue though is deforestation. True not specifically related to climate change but it is a partial cause for it. With the amount of trees deteriorating, the levels of CO2 can rise as the masses of trees in Tropical Rainforest play a huge part in reducing those levels. So really it all relates back to each other. If deforestation occurs, the habitats of the Toucan will decrease meaning their population will have to lower itself to be able to accommodate all the creatures living in the area. But the Toucan is very important to the ecosystem in the Tropical Rainforest because of simply its feeding habits. When a Toucan eats a fruit from the tree as it flies or perches on the branches, it disperses seeds onto the ground below allowing for mammals on the ground to have more food pickings, helping out other populations, but more importantly allowing for more plants to take seed. So if there's less trees for them to live, resulting in a lower population there will be even less trees replacing the ones and continuing on the growth and feeding cycles in the Tropical Rainforest because there will be less Toucans to spread them around. So in turn not only will the Toucan be affected but the vegetation in the area, the healthiness of the soil, which will further affect the vegetation as well as the herbivores that feed on these plants. Already this can be seen happening. The Toucan is native too the American Tropics and is only found there, but in Panama there has been a crippling decline in the population of the Toucan.
Another thing to think of is the fact that the Toucan is one of the most commonly known creatures in the Tropical Rainforest. It pulls on the heart strings of thousands of millions of people with such characters as 'Toucan Sam', the Toucan representing the children cereal 'Froot Loops'. With this beautiful bird gone, who can really saw how much revenue and support would be lost for the Tropical Rainforest. The Toucan is vital to saving more than just the Tropical Rainforest itselfs, but in gathering more supporters.


Sarah Wilkins

The Rubber Tree

Rubber Tree

Family: Euphorbiaceae
Genus: Hevea
Species: brasiliensis

The tree is the most important natural source of rubber in the world. These trees are a tall tree that can grow to be 100 feet tall. They have aerial roots that come to the ground and form what appears to be more tree trunks. The Rubber tree has beautiful smooth, dark, shiny leaves, and a light shaded bark. These trees love to be in full bright lights, but will adapt if necessary to duller lighting. During the day rubber trees prefer temperatures from 21-29 degrees Celsius 70-85 degrees Fahrenheit), and at night they like temperatures from 18-23 degrees Celsius (65-75 degrees Fahrenheit). They also enjoy humid weather therefore the tropical rain forest being the prime living conditions.
The Rubber tree does not do well in conditions that are continuously changing. For example if the climate in the rain forest were to turn into a 4 season climate, like we have here in Canada, the rubber tree may go into shock and the health and beauty of the rubber tree would decline greatly and could even cause death of the tree. This would not be good for the rain forest as the security that the rubber trees aerial roots provide for other plants, such as the banana tree, would be lost. This would create a decline in other types of plants and would minimize the growth and size of the rain forest.

Alexandra Wierenga

Lianas Vines

Laina's Vines

Laina's is a type of vine that starts out as a small shrub on the ground that relies on other plants to receive a source of light. When Laina's grow they grow towards other trees and plants and use their trunks to grow upward. Because they rely on other trees for their support as they grow they develop little structure and can not support themselves. The only thing that they take from a tree is support, they can gather their own nutrient's. There are a few different ways that Laina's use in order to grow upward. Some of these ways include stem twining, grasping leaves and branches that come out of the trunk of a tree, making modifications to their leaves and branches to fit the tree on which they grow, thorns and spikes that attach the vine to the tree, downward-pointing adhesive hairs, and adhesive, adventitious roots. Once the Liana reaches the canopy layer it begins to spread from tree to tree.
There are so many Laina's in the the rain forest and so many plants and animals have developed ways to minimize their growth. Some trees will drop a limb in order to get rid of the Liana that is attached. Because of these attempts to rid Laina's from the trees the Laina's have learned to adapt for self preservation. Some ways they have adapted are to coil and bend to create a spring like shape. This will absorb the shock of the tree limbs falling on them and would help them to stay alive. Even though there are so many Laina's they are a big help to the rain forest as they suppress tree regeneration, increase tree mortality, provide a valuable food source for animals, and create a physical linking of trees, therefore providing canopy-to-canopy access for arboreal animals.
Scientist have discovered that Laina's grow 7 times faster than trees in the dry season, and only 2 times faster than trees in the wet season. If there was to be a longer dry season in the tropical rain forest then the forest would be over ridden with Laina's vines. The vines would be so numerous that the rain forest would simply be a tangle of Liana's vines. This would be bad for the animals as they would no longer be able to move around easily and so they would not be able to get the food sources they need. The animals could also get tangled up in the vines and be strangled, easy access for pray, or die of dehydration and hunger. This would also be bad for the trees and other plants as the Liana's would take most of the sunlight leaving very little for other plants of undergo photosynthesis. This would cause lack of growth in plants and trees and the rain forest would slowly shrink and simply become a pile of vines.

Alexandra Wierenga

Effects of Climate Change on the Tropical Rainforest

The effects of climate change on the Tropical Rainforest are not pretty, and will not develop very nicely by any means. Many of the creatures as well as vegetation, eubacteria and fungi depend on water for survival, which means decrease in rain fall and rising temperatures will only hurt the biodiversity and the environment itself. These things of course affect the trees, the staple the life in the Tropical Rainforests of the world, snuffing out much of the life inside the rainforests.
Whats more alarming though is not the affect that climate change is having on the Tropical Rainforests, but the affect the Tropical Rainforests are having on climate change. The Tropical Rainforests are famous for, of course, their ancient and tall trees. They have the largest tree populations in the world, as well as plenty of other different types of vegetation. It is a well known fact that trees produce oxygen and send it into the air, which is another key reason for protecting the Tropical Rainforests, but on the other hand they also absorb CO2 and carbon dioxide. These are two factors affecting climate change. CO2 is actually the cause of green house gases that are going up into the atmosphere and attacking the ozone layer creating the rise in temperature and the weather fluctuations.
Essentially these changes will affect the Tropical Rainforests like any other place in the world. It will hinder growth as so much of it depends on water and vegetation and with less rainfall and increased temperatures these things will have a hard time for surviving. Based on that, the population of mammals and living creatures like bacteria and fungi will also decrease lessening the biodiversity of the environment and causing it to become unhealthy, creating irrevocable damage.
The Tropical Rainforests are a key to lessening the affects and even potentially ending climate change and global warming. They need to be protected so they can continue what their doing and at all costs, not be harmed anymore. With so much still unknown about the Earth, and the potential of it, and so much good coming from the Tropical Rainforests, it can never be known when they might be needed. And if humans continue damaging them, and climate change is ignored while the population of humans pretends it isn't there, the Tropical Rainforests might not be around by the time the Earth realizes it needs them.


Sarah Wilkins

Bibliography

Sarahs Bibliography:

1.) Author Unknown. "Biomesfirst" Tropical Rainforest Factual Information2010.March 3rd, 2010.

2.) Author Unknown. "Blogger" DashboardMarch 3rd,2010.

3.) Author Unknown. "Rainforest Wildlife" Rainforest Toucan March 12th, 2010.

4.)Author Unknown. "Honolulu Zoo" The Red Eyed Tree Frog 2008. March 12th,2010.

5.)Paul Zahl. "National Geographic" Red Eyed Tree Frog March 12th, 2010.

6.)Irina Ignatova. "Tropical-Rainforest-Animals.com" Jaguar Animal - One of the Largest Cats in the World. March 12th 2010.

7.)Irina Ignatova. "Tropical-Rainforest-Animals.com"Tropical Rainforests March 12th, 2010.


Alexandras Bibliography:

1.) Rhett Butler. "Mongabay.com" Orchids/Epiphytes 2005. March 12th, 2010.

2.) Tony Manarich. "Ezine Articles" Rubber Trees- Rainforest Plants 2010. March 12th, 2010.

3.) Author Unknown. "Rubber Tree Plant" Rubber Tree Plant Ficus Elastica March 12th, 2010.


Abby's Bibliography:

1.) Agrobacterium Tumefaciens. Wright, Philip. 2004. 11 March 2010. http://www.arabidopsis.info/students/agrobacterium/index.html.

2.) Author Unknown. "Azotobacter Vinelandii." Biofertilizer. Editor Unknown. Organic Garden and Eco Friendly Energy Information Center. 11 March 2010. http://www.biofertilizer.com/biofertilizer/azotobacter.htm.

3.) Author Unknown. "Flagellates." EnvironmentalLeverage. Editor Unknown. 2003. Environmental Leverage Inc. 11 March 2010. http://www.environmentalleverage.com/Flagellates/htm.

4.) Author Unknown. "Tropical Rainforest Factual Information." Biomesfirst. 2010. 3 March 2010. Retrieved from the OLPC Wiki: https://biomesfirst.wikispaces.com/Tropical++Rainforest+Factual+Information.