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Atlantic Forest
The Atlantic forest is located mainly in the mountainous areas close to the sea, but it is also found in spaces in the interior. Its original area extended from the state of Rio Grande do Norte to the state of  Rio Grande do Sul. This ecosystem has lost area from human occupation since 1500. The largest preserved areas are in the Serra do Mar (Sea Mountain) and in the Mantiqueira Mountain (São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo States), mainly due to their uneven topography that it difficult for human occupation. The Atlantic forest has characteristics of tropical forests.

More than 50% of its trees are endemic and are located no where else. This transforms it into a forest with the biggest biodiversity on the planet, with larger diversity than the Amazon. This diversity is a result of the variety of climate (as will be seen) and to topography that facilitates rain. The area possesses high precipitation with values from 2000 to 3000mm/year, and consequently the relative humidity of the air is extremely high from 65 to 100%. The soil is rich and the nutrient cycle is extremely fast.

Coast Area
The permanent substratum mobility, hinders the fixation of  vegetation in beach areas. Behind the beach, there are dunes. They are formed through a direct link to tidal movement and by the fact that winds always blow in the direction from sea to land. This area has such unfavorable conditions as high salinity, lack of organic matter, high mobility of the substratum, speed of water drainage and high warming of superficial layers. Due to these conditions, this area doesn't have a great variety of plant species. Those that exist possess adaptations to the place. These are called pioneer plants. The pioneers facilitate the appearing of other plants culminating with the appearing of the sandbank.

The sandbank is the subsequent area of the dunes. Its relief is flat and it possesses slow moving rivers. The species of plants living in this area possess a gradation of growth in height. The species are lower when closer to the beach and gain more height towards the interior. The sandbank was called bad forest by the Indians, because its plants are extremely thorny which  turns the forest into a difficult barrier.

Behind the sandbank, the hillside forest exists in an area where salinity and other influences of the sea are not so great, but the area is very humid. In this area, the trees are much larger. This forest is not very different from the hilltop forest that is found after the hillside forest. At times when a mountain is very high and the soil is very shallow, a high land field formation occurs.  The high land field is generally covered by various kind of grass with a few bushes spaced throughout. This area is affected greatly by climate (cold),winds (that are in general extremely strong), and erosion that takes the soil for the lowest areas, leaving a small remainder of earth  on the rock mother.

It is common to find in the areas where the sea encounters rocks the areas that are called rocky coast. This area is an important and interesting fraction of the natural life succession. In the area permanently covered by water there exists some algae that need water the whole time, and also some cracas. In the subsequent area, hidden by the high tide and uncovered in the low tide there exist algae that are no more water dependent as in the previous succession, but that still depend of the water. After, there exists an area that only receives water spray and an area that doesn't receive any sea water. One can notice a succession of independence of the water as one walks inland from  the sea.

The "manguezal " (coastal swamp area) is a singular kind of coast vegetation, resultant of the mixture of the sea water and the sediments of rivers. The soil is muddy, and almost always flooded (varying with the tide), its salinity is high, and it is not very oxygenated. This hinders the existence of a rich flora. Due to the great amount of organic matter in decompositon, the "manguezal" has a scent of sulfur. Due to this great amount of organic matter and because it is a sheltered area of from waves, the "manguezal" is chosen by many species of crustaceans and other organisms for spawning. To survive, the flora needed to adapt for the specific characteristics of the "manguezal". For example, some plants have developed aerial roots. Some species produce fruits that don't come off of the branches, thus facilitating  seeds that germinate in the aerial part, emitting long and vertical roots that facilitate the fast fixation, when dropping to the soil.

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