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Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forests, are a tropical and subtropical forest biome.
Tropical and subtropical forest regions with lower rainfall are home to tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests and tropical and subtropical coniferous forests. Temperate rain forests also occur in certain humid temperate coastal regions.
The biome includes several types of forests:
- Lowland equatorial evergreen rain forests, commonly known as tropical rainforests, are forests which receive high rainfall (more than 2000 mm, or 80 inches, annually) throughout the year. These forests occur in a belt around the equator, with the largest areas in the Amazon basin of South America, the Congo basin of central Africa, Indonesia, and New Guinea.
- Moist deciduous and semi-evergreen seasonal forests, receive high overall rainfall with a warm summer wet season and a cooler winter dry season. Some trees in these forests drop some or all of their leaves during the winter dry season. These forests are found in parts of South America, in Central America and around the Caribbean, in coastal West Africa, parts of the Indian subcontinent, and across much of Indochina.
- Montane rain forests, some of which are known as cloud forests, are found in cooler-climate mountainous areas.
- Flooded forests, including freshwater swamp forests and peat swamp forests.
Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests are common in several terrestrial ecozones, including parts of the Afrotropic (equatorial Africa), Indomalaya (parts of the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia), the Neotropic (northern South America and Central America), Australasia (eastern Indonesia, New Guinea, northern and eastern Australia), and Oceania (the tropical islands of the Pacific Ocean). About half of the world's tropical rainforests are in the South American countries of Brazil and Peru. Rain forests now cover less than 6% of Earth's land surface. Scientists estimate that more than half of all the world's plant and animal species live in tropical rain forests.
See also
- Center for Tropical Forest Science (CTFS)
- List of tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregions
- Trees of the world
External links
- Facts about the world's tropical rainforests from The Nature Conservancy
- Worldwide Fund for Nature
- Types of rainforests
- Rainforest - Classroom activities
- NASA picture of the afforest of the earth in the year 2002
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- This page was last modified on 14 November 2008, at 02:57.
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