Global ecosystem typology

Alternative site for the Global ecosystem typology with additional information for ecosystem profiles and indicative maps.

This site is maintained by jrfep

T1.1 Tropical/Subtropical lowland rainforests

Biome: T1. Tropical-subtropical forests biome

Contributors:
(texts)

A huge diversity of species occupy niches within a complex vertically-layered structure of plant forms. High productivity is fuelled by rapid-growing plants including buttressed trees, bamboos, epiphytes, lianas and ferns. Forest canopies sustain moist soils and abundant leaf litter decomposed by fungi and bacteria. High diversity of invertebrates at all levels of the forest supports diverse vertebrate life forms, particularly mammals and birds, which play critical roles in plant dispersal and pollination. Conditions near the equator are stable and humid year-round (up to 6000 mm rain per annum), but become more seasonal with mild winter frosts in the subtropics.

Key Features

Tall closed-canopy evergreen forests in warm wet climates, phylogenetically & functionally highly diverse life forms.

Overview of distribution

Global wet tropics & subtropics.

Profile versions

Main references

Selected references for this functional group:

  • Corlett RT, Primack RB (2011) Tropical Rain Forests: An ecological and biogeographical comparison. Second edition. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester.

  • Ashton PS, Seidler R (2014) On the forests of tropical Asia: lest the memory fade Kew Publishing: Kew

Diagrammatic assembly model

Diagrammatic assembly model of T1.1 Tropical/Subtropical lowland rainforests. See general notes on diagrams. Open image full size.

Maps

Maps are indicative of global distribution patterns are not intended to represent fine-scale patterns. The maps show areas of the world containing major (coloured red) or minor occurrences (coloured yellow) of each ecosystem functional group. See general notes on maps.

There are 2 alternative versions of the indicative map for this functional group, please compare description and sources below.

T1.1.IM.mix_v2.0

Datasets

  • IBRA-v7
  • EarthEnv-LandCover-v1.0
  • Resolve-Ecoregions-2017

Map references

  • Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (2012) Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia v. 7 (IBRA) ESRI shapefile

  • Tuanmu, M.-N. and W. Jetz (2014) A global 1-km consensus land-cover product for biodiversity and ecosystem modeling Global Ecology and Biogeography 23(9):1031–1045 DOI:10.1111/geb.12182

  • Dinerstein E, Olson D, Joshi A, Vynne C, Burgess ND, Wikramanayake E, Hahn N, Palminteri S, Hedao P, Noss R, Hansen M, Locke H, Ellis EE, Jones B, Barber CV, Hayes R, Kormos C, Martin V, Crist E, Sechrest W, Price L, Baillie JEM, Weeden D, Suckling K, Davis C, Sizer N, Moore R, Thau D, Birch T, Potapov P, Turubanova S, Tyukavina A, de Souza N, Pintea L, Brito JC, Llewellyn Barnekow Lillesø JP, van Breugel P, Graudal L, Voge M, Al-Shammari KF, Saleem M (2017) An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm, BioScience 67: 534–545. DOI:10.1093/biosci/bix014. Data-set available on-line

T1.1.web.mix_v2.0

Major and minor occurrences were initially identified using consensus land-cover maps (Tuanmu et al. 2014) and then cropped to selected terrestrial ecoregions (Dinerstein et al. 2017; DAWE 2012) at 30 arc seconds spatial resolution. Ecoregions were selected if: i) their descriptions mentioned features consistent with those identified in the profile of the Ecosystem Functional Group; and ii) if their location was consistent with the ecological drivers described in the profile. Open image full size.

Datasets

  • IBRA-v7
  • Resolve-Ecoregions-2017
  • EarthEnv-LandCover-v1.0

Map references

  • Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment (2012) Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia v. 7 (IBRA) ESRI shapefile

  • Dinerstein E, Olson D, Joshi A, Vynne C, Burgess ND, Wikramanayake E, Hahn N, Palminteri S, Hedao P, Noss R, Hansen M, Locke H, Ellis EE, Jones B, Barber CV, Hayes R, Kormos C, Martin V, Crist E, Sechrest W, Price L, Baillie JEM, Weeden D, Suckling K, Davis C, Sizer N, Moore R, Thau D, Birch T, Potapov P, Turubanova S, Tyukavina A, de Souza N, Pintea L, Brito JC, Llewellyn Barnekow Lillesø JP, van Breugel P, Graudal L, Voge M, Al-Shammari KF, Saleem M (2017) An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm, BioScience 67: 534–545. DOI:10.1093/biosci/bix014. Data-set available on-line

  • Tuanmu, M.-N. and W. Jetz (2014) A global 1-km consensus land-cover product for biodiversity and ecosystem modeling Global Ecology and Biogeography 23(9):1031–1045 DOI:10.1111/geb.12182

Back to: Realm overview / Terrestrial Realm / Biome overview / T1. Tropical-subtropical forests biome
Check: the Glossary / Profile structure / the public document