Threats to Forest Biomes

• The enquiry question is: What are the threats to forest biomes and how can they be reduced?

Tropical Rainforests

• The structure, functioning, and adaptations reflect the equatorial climate.
• Biotic and abiotic characteristics are interdependent, including climate, soil, water, plants, animals, and humans.
• Plants have stratified layers, buttress roots, and drip tips and animals are adapted to the climate.
• A very high rate of nutrient cycling supports high levels of biodiversity and complex food webs.
• They are threatened directly by deforestation and indirectly by climate change.

Deforestation Causes

• Commercial hardwood logging
• Subsistence and commercial agriculture
• Local demand for fuel wood
• Demand for biofuels, mineral resources, and electricity (HEP)

Climate Change Threat

• It poses an indirect threat to the health of tropical rainforests, causing ecosystem stress and drought.

Conservation

• Conservation and sustainable management are vital to maintain goods and services for future generations.

Global Actions

• CITES and REDD have advantages and disadvantages in protecting tropical rainforest species and areas.
• Deforestation rates are increasing in some areas but falling in others.

Taiga

• It shows characteristics reflecting the more extreme and highly seasonal climate.
• Biotic and abiotic characteristics are interdependent, including climate, soil, water, plants, animals, and humans.
• Taiga plants like cone-shaped trees with needles and animals that migrate are adapted to the climate.
• Taiga has lower productivity, with less active nutrient cycling and much lower levels of biodiversity.
• Increasingly threatened by commercial development.

Threats

• Direct threats include logging for softwood, pulp, and paper production.
• Indirect threats result from the exploitation of minerals, fossil fuels, and HEP potential.
• Acid precipitation, forest fires, pests and diseases contribute to a loss of biodiversity.