Importance of Forests

Importance of Forests

Forests and biodiversity is key to all life forms. The richer the diversity of life, the greater the opportunity for medical discoveries, economic development and adaptive responses to such new challenges as climate change. 

Below are some more importance of forests:


Forests serve as a watershed. This is because almost all water ultimately comes from rivers and lakes and from forest-derived water tables. Some rivers running through forests are also kept cool and from drying out. "The Amazon is by far the largest watershed and largest river system in the world occupying over 6 million square kilometers. Over two-thirds of all the fresh water found on Earth is in the Amazon Basin's rivers, streams, and tributaries." - RainTree

Habitat and Ecosystems

Forests serve as a home (habitat) to millions of animals. Think of the many types of reptiles (snakes and lizards) wild animals, butterflies and insects, birds and tree-top animals as well as all those that live in the forest streams and rivers. 
Animals form part of the food chain in the forests. All these different animals and plants are called biodiversity, and the interaction with one another and with their physical environment is what we call ecosystem.Healthy ecosystems can better withstand and recover from a variety of disasters such as floods and wildfires.

Economic benefits

Forests are of immense economic importance to us. For example, plantation forests provide humans with timber and wood, which is exported and used in all parts of the world. They also provide tourism income to inhabitants (people living in or close to forests) when people visit to see the best of nature. 

Climate Control

Climate control and atmosphere purification is key for human existence. Trees and soils help regulate atmospheric temperatures through a process called evapotranspiration. This helps to stabilize the climate. Additionally, they enrich the atmosphere by absorbing bad gases (example CO2 and other greenhouse gases) and producing oxygen. Trees also helps to remove air pollutants

All about Trex

                              T-REX

Tyrannosaurus  ("tyrant lizard", from the Ancient Greek tyrannos, "tyrant", and sauros, "lizard") is a genus of coelurosaurian theropod dinosaur. The species Tyrannosaurus rex (rex meaning "king" in Latin), commonly abbreviated to T. rex, is one of the most well-represented of the large theropods. Tyrannosaurus lived throughout what is now western North America, on what was then an island continent known as Laramidia. 

  Tyrannosaurus had a much wider range than other tyrannosaurids. Fossils are found in a variety of rock formations dating to the Maastrichtian age of the upper Cretaceous Period, 68 to 66 million years ago. It was the last known member of the tyrannosaurids, and among the last non-avian dinosaurs to exist before the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.

  Like other tyrannosaurids, Tyrannosaurus was a bipedal carnivore with a massive skull balanced by a long, heavy tail. Relative to its large and powerful hindlimbs, Tyrannosaurus forelimbs were short but unusually powerful for their size and had two clawed digits. 

  Although other theropods rivaled or exceeded Tyrannosaurus rex in size, it was the largest known tyrannosaurid and one of the largest known land predators. In fact, the most complete specimen measures up to 12.3 m (40 ft) in length, up to 4 meters (13 ft) tall at the hips, and up to 6.8 metric tons (7.5 short tons) in weight. By far the largest carnivore in its environment,Tyrannosaurus rex may have been an apex predator, preying upon hadrosaurs, ceratopsians, and possibly sauropods, although some experts have suggested the dinosaur was primarily a scavenger. 

  The question of whether Tyrannosaurus was an apex predator or a pure scavenger has been among the longest ongoing debates in paleontology; however, most scientists now agree that Tyrannosaurus rex was an opportunistic carnivore, acting as both a predator and a scavenger. Given its skull structure, studies suggest that it may exert one of the largest biting forces among all animals.

More than 50 specimens of Tyrannosaurus rex have been identified, some of which are nearly complete skeletons. Soft tissue and proteins have been reported in at least one of these specimens. The abundance of fossil material has allowed significant research into many aspects of its biology, including its life history and biomechanics. 

   The feeding habits, physiology and potential speed of Tyrannosaurus rex are a few subjects of debate. Its taxonomy is also controversial, as some scientists consider Tarbosaurus bataar from Asia to be a second Tyrannosaurus species while others maintain Tarbosaurus is a separate genus. Several other genera of North American tyrannosaurids have also been synonymized with Tyrannosaurus.

Types of plants

Plants, also called green plants, are multicellular eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. They form an unranked clade Viridiplantae (Latin for green plants) that includes the flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns, clubmosses, hornworts, liverworts, mosses and the green algae. Green plants excludes the red and brown algae, the fungi, archaea, bacteria and animals.

Green plants have cell walls with cellulose and obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts, derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria. Their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce normal amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are also characterized by sexual reproduction, modular and indeterminate growth, and an alternation of generations, although asexual reproduction is also common.

            Types of Plants 

Kinds of Plants

Most people will recognize most of the plants on this page. At the same time, we don't always pay too much attention to what makes some living things similar and what makes them different. It is not easy to see that an oak tree and a geranium are near relatives until you start to look closely.

The way we look at plants now has a lot to do with the work of Carl Linnaeus He was a 17th Century, Swedish scientist and he wanted to work out just how many different kinds of living thing there were.

He separated living things into plants and animals- in the same way that people had done for a very long time- but then went much further. He proposed groups and families where living organisms could be placed with their closest relatives. This was the beginning of modern scientific classification.

Classification has changed, as science has advanced but the Linnaean system is still in pretty good shape. On this page you will find the main groups of plants according to that system.

The Main Kinds of Plants

Plants without Seeds

• Algae: green, brown and red (see discussion below: 'Are algae really plants?')
• Mosses and Liverworts
• Ferns and Horsetails

Plants with Seeds

• Cycas- palm trees, for example
• Ginkgo- a living fossil
• Conifers- Spruce, Fir, Larch and so on
• Flowering plants- from Oak trees to Geraniums

Algae

Kinds of Algae: Green, Brown and Red

Green Algae

This is a very varied group of living things with many thousands of individual species. Most green algae live in water. Some live where it is very damp all the time. They hate being dried out.

If you see a pond where the water is green it will probably be because millions of tiny green algae have grown there. Each alga is invisible to the naked eye.

On a seashore, you might come across kinds of green algae that are very big indeed- the green seaweeds.

Brown Algae

Brown algae is more common in the ocean than in freshwater.

Some of the tallest plants in the world are brown algae. Giant kelp, for example, is common in shallow oceans- especially off the coast of California. It can be as tall as 250 feet!

A single-celled alga viewed through a very powerful electron microscope. This one is a sea dweller but many similar kinds live in freshwater ponds and lakes.

Are Algae Really Plants?

To a scientist, the answer is 'no'. To most people, the answer is 'yes'.

Close study suggests that algae have more in common with bacteria than plants and scientists have removed them from the Plant Kingdom

Algae photosynthesise (make food from water and carbon dioxide) as do all plants but they lack the distinctive structures of true plants like roots and leaves.

A Kelp Forest with many brown algae. Photo by Fastily

Liverworts

Liverworts are small plants that you see in damp places. They can stand being dried out a little better than algae but not much.

A common kind of liverwort is pictured below. You usually see this kind near waterfalls or in woods with a lot of rain. The picture has a high magnification. These plants are pretty small!

Liverworts are believed to have evolved soon after plants made the transition from water to the land. In this sense they are more advanced than algae.

They do not have the sophisticated vessels that transport water from roots to leaves found in more advanced plants.

A Quaking Bog

Ferns

Ferns are far better at coping with dry periods than either algae or mosses but still need very wet conditions to reproduce. This limits where they can grow. You will not find a fern in a desert!

Bracken is an especially successful kind of fern in countries with a cool, wet climate. It spreads quickly by using 'creeping rhizomes' and can cover many acres very quickly.

In Devonian times- many millions of years ago, ferns were the dominant land plant on our planet. Instead of forests of Fir trees or Oak, the forests would be made up of huge tree ferns. Later on, many familiar dinosaurs like the Triceratops would be happy to dine on ferns.

Typical fern leaf

Plants with Seeds

Seeds have an outer layer that helps protect against drying out, infection or consumption by animals

Cycads

These mostly grow in Central America, Africa, SE Asia and parts of Australia.

They are the kinds of plants you see in jungle movies- but some are popular house and garden plants. They like moisture and heat.

They can be tall and often have woody trunks. The leaves tend to be long and thin.

If you have grown up in a Northern climate, cycads can be strange plants to encounter. Quite suddenly unfamiliar and fascinating structures will grow out of a cycad in my garden, for example, and have me hunting through my books to find out exactly what is happening.

These structures are usually cones of some kind- similar to the cones that conifers produce.

Cones bear exposed seeds rather than the kinds of seeds that you find in flowering plants, which are well protected until they are released. The seeds are often pollinated by special kinds of beetle rather than bees or other insects.

Typical Cycad Cone.

Ginkgo

There is only one kind of Ginkgo in the world today- Ginkgo Biloba- and when you look at the fossils of this plant, it might be that there was only ever one kind.

Despite the lack of diversity, the Ginkgo once covered huge areas of the world. Now they are only found naturally in Central China.

Most scientists think that flowering trees outdid the Ginkgo and it gradually died out as modern trees evolved.

It is sometimes called a living fossil.

At the same time, the tree's beauty has meant that gardeners and park keepers have carefully planted many Ginkgo Biloba trees around the world.

Fall colors of a female Ginkgo Tree in Japan.

Conifers

A Spruce Forest, young Larch Cone and old Fir Cone

Conifers are close relatives of cycads. They have cones with seeds and they also have woody trunks.

The most noticeable difference is that conifers like cold, northern climates where they can form huge forests that can stretch from one side of a continent to the other.

The typical conifer shape is excellent at shedding snow. They also have many ways of coping with freezing at the cellular level.

Conifers are popular garden plants too. They grow very quickly and they are evergreen.

Flowering Plants

An Oak Tree, a geranium, an orchid and a shrub (hydrangea) in full flower

Some people think of plants and trees as very different. The truth is that trees are plants just as much as a row of lettuce or a fine rose.

Flowering plants are the most familiar kinds of plant for anyone who lives in a temperate climate (not too hot, not too cold).

The thing that makes a geranium so similar to an Oak tree is the flowers that they both produce. Flowering plants protect the female parts of the plant inside thick walls of tissue. The male parts of the plant produce pollen, and this needs to burrow its way through this tissue to produce an embryo that then develops into a seed.

Pollen can be transferred from one plant to another by wind or by insects like bees. Plants that use wind pollination usually have small, drab and inconspicuous flowers. Flowers that use insects for pollination are often big and bright so that the insects can see them from a long way off.

Flowering plants are the plants most able to cope with dry conditions. Cacti can flourish in places where there is no rain for many years at a time.

While flowering trees grow more slowly than conifers, their hard wood is more resistant to insect damage. This means they do better in warmer places 

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Three World's Most Amazing Animals

 

                             Mudskipper

These remarkable fish have adapted their gills to hold 

water when out of the sea and have turned their pectoral fins into walking aids in order to live on mud flats. They are able to excavate underground burrows, where they lay their eggs, and can even jump into the air to help attract a mate.

Where to spot them

Mudskippers can be found in tropical, subtropical and 

temperate region with tidal mud flats, including the Indo-

Pacific and Atlantic coasts of Africa and Saga, Japan.

                               Basilisk lizard

This lizard's unique means of escaping predators involves literally walking on water. It is capable of moving in this fashion at an impressive speed of five feet per second. Humans would need to drive their legs back and forth at 65 miles per hour in order to accomplish such a feat - a muscular exertion 15 times greater than we are capable of.

Where to spot them

Basilisks are found in the tropical forest of Central 

America, parts of South America and in Belmopan, 

Belize. 

                         Lesser flamingo

One of the strangest sights in nature is the courtship 

dance of the lesser flamingo. Groups of flamingos will 

begin to march across the water while flicking their heads 

and making distinctive calls. More and more birds will join 

the parade until thousands of flamingos are seemingly 

gliding together as one. Pairs will couple up and leave to 

mate, while the dance goes on.

Where to spot them

Flamingos feeding lakes can be found throughout Africa. 

Lake Bogoria in Kenya attracts an incredible number to its 

waters. Accommodation is available on site: there's a 

hotel on the northern shore and several campsites to the 

south of the lake. Wider tours of the region are available 

through operators.

Animal's history

Dogs and sheep were among the first animals to be domesticated.

Domestication (from the Latin domesticus: "of the home") is the cultivating or taming of a population of organisms in order to accentuate traits that are desirable to the cultivator or tamer. The desired traits may include a particular physical appearance, behavioral characteristic, individual size, litter size, hair/fur quality or color, growth rate, fecundity, lifespan, ability to use marginal grazing resources, production of certain by-products, and many others.Domesticated organisms may become dependent on humans or human activities, since they sometimes lose their ability to survive in the wild.

Domestication differs from taming in that it may refer not simply to a change in organisms' behaviors or environmental socialization, but also potentially even in their phenotypical expressions and genotypes. The word domestication also is more commonly used to mean a change within whole populations, while taming is more commonly used to mean a change within individuals. Furthermore, taming typically applies only to animals and their becoming habituated to human presence, while domestication is a broader term and can include plants, fungi, and other types of organisms.

Plants domesticated primarily for aesthetic enjoyment in and around the home are usually called house plants or ornamentals, while those domesticated for large-scale food production are generally called crops. A distinction can be made between those domesticated plants that have been deliberately altered or selected for special desirable characteristics (see cultigen) and those plants that are used for human benefit, but are essentially no different from the wild populations of the species. Animals domesticated for home companionship are usually called pets, while those domesticated for food or work are called livestock or farm animals.

Animals

Archaeozoology has identified 3 classes of animal domesticates: (1) commensals, adapted to a human niche (e.g., dogs, cats, guinea pigs); (2) prey animals sought for food (e.g., cows, sheep, pig, goats); and (3) targeted animals for draft and nonfood resources (e.g., horse, camel, donkey).

According to evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond, animal species must meet six criteria in order to be considered for domestication:

Hereford cattle, domesticated for beef production.

1. Flexible diet – Creatures that are willing to consume a wide variety of food sources and can live off less cumulative food from the food pyramid (such as corn or wheat), particularly food that is not utilized by humans (such as grass and forage) are less expensive to keep in captivity. Carnivores by definition feed primarily or only on flesh, which requires the domesticators to raise additional animals just to feed them, though they may exploit sources of meat not utilized by humans, such as scraps and vermin.
2. Reasonably fast growth rate – Fast maturity rate compared to the human life span allows breeding intervention and makes the animal useful within an acceptable duration of caretaking. Some large animals require many years before they reach a useful size.
3. Ability to be bred in captivity – Creatures that are reluctant to breed when kept in captivity do not produce useful offspring, and instead are limited to capture in their wild state. Creatures such as the panda,antelope and giant forest hog are territorial when breeding and cannot be maintained in crowded enclosures in captivity.
4. Pleasant disposition – Large creatures that are aggressive toward humans are dangerous to keep in captivity. The African buffalo has an unpredictable nature and is highly dangerous to humans; similarly, although the American bison is raised in enclosed ranges in the Western United States, it is much too dangerous to be regarded as truly domesticated. Although similar to the domesticated pig in many ways, Africa's warthog and bushpig are also dangerous in captivity.
5. Temperament which makes it unlikely to panic – A creature with a nervous disposition is difficult to keep in captivity as it may attempt to flee whenever startled. The gazelle is very flighty and it has a powerful leap that allows it to escape an enclosed pen. Some animals, such as the domestic sheep, still have a strong tendency to panic when their flight zone is encroached upon. However, most sheep also show a flocking instinct, whereby they stay close together when pressed. Livestock with such an instinct may be herded by people and dogs.
6. Modifiable social hierarchy – Social creatures whose herds occupy overlapping ranges and recognize a hierarchy of dominance can be raised to recognize a human as the pack leader:
   1. Tapirs and rhinoceroses are solitary and do not tolerate being penned with each other.
   2. Antelope and deer—except for reindeer—are territorial when breeding and live in herds only for the rest of the year.
   3. Bighorn sheep and peccaries have non-hierarchical herd structures and do not follow any definite leader; instead, males fight continuously with each other for mating opportunities.
   4. Musk ox herds, although they have a defined leader, maintain mutually exclusive territories and two herds will fight if kept together.

Cow domestication in North India for milk production.

However, this list is of limited use because it fails to take into account the profound changes that domestication has on a species. While it is true that some animals retain their wild instincts even if born in captivity, e.g. laying hens,^[13] pigs^[14] and laboratory mice,^[15] some factors must be taken into consideration.

Number (5) may not be a prerequisite for domestication, but rather a natural consequence of a species' having been domesticated. In other words, wild animals are naturally timid and flighty because they are constantly faced by predators; domestic animals do not need such a nervous disposition, as they are protected by their human owners. The same holds true for number (4) – aggressive temperament is an adaptation to the danger from predators. A Cape buffalo can kill even an attacking lion, but most modern large domestic animals were descendants of aggressive ancestors. The wild boar, ancestor of the domestic pig, is certainly renowned for its ferocity; other examples include the aurochs (ancestor of modern cattle), horse, Bactrian camels and yaks, all of which are no less dangerous than their undomesticated wild relatives such as zebras and buffalos. Others have argued that the difference lies in the ease with which breeding can improve the dispositions of wild animals, a view supported by the failure to domesticate the kiang and onager. On the other hand, for thousands of years humans have managed to tame dangerous species like bears and cheetahs^{[citation needed]} whose failed domestications had little to do with their aggressiveness.

Number (6), while it does apply to most domesticated species, also has exceptions, most notably in the domestic cat and ferret, which are both descended from strictly solitary wild ancestors but which tolerate and even seek out social interaction in their domestic forms. Feral domestic cats, for example, naturally form colonies around concentrated food sources, and will even share prey and rear kittens communally, while wildcats remain solitary even in the presence of such food sources. Zoologist Marston Bates devoted a chapter on domestication in his 1960 book The Forest and the Sea, in which he talks a great deal about how domestication alters a species. Dispersal mechanisms tend to disappear for the reason stated above, and additionally, because people provide transportation for them, domestic chickens and turkeys have a greatly reduced ability to fly. Similarly, domestic animals cease to have a definite mating season, so the need to be territorial when mating loses its value, and if some of the males in a herd are castrated, the problem is reduced even further. What he says suggests that the process of domestication can itself make a creature domesticable. Besides, the first steps towards agriculture may have involved hunters keeping young animals, who are always more impressionable than the adults, after killing their mothers.

The American black bear (Ursus americanus) is a medium-sized bear native to North America. It is the continent's smallest and most widely distributed bear species. Black bears are omnivores with their diets varying greatly depending on season and location. They typically live in largely forested areas, but do leave forests in search of food. Sometimes they become attracted to human communities because of the immediate availability of food. The American black bear is the world's most common bear species.

It is listed by the IUCN as a "least concern" species, due to its widespread distribution and a large global population estimated to be twice that of all other bear species combined. Along with the brown bear, it is one of only two of the eight modern bear species not considered globally threatened with extinction by the IUCN. American black bears often mark trees using their teeth and claws as a form of communication with other bears, a behavior common to many species of bears.