Ecoinformatics and Soil-Plant Formations - New Ecoinformatics Tools in Environmental Science: Applications and Decision-making - page 632

c interest is due to the fact that forest ecosystems play important role in
global environmental change. A forest ecosystem is a natural woodland unit con-
sisting of all plants, animals and micro-organisms (biotic) in an area functioning
together with all of the non-living physical (abiotic) factors of the environment. The
entire assemblage of forest organisms (trees, shrubs, herbs, bacteria, fungi, and
animals, including people) together with their environmental substrate (the sur-
rounding air, soil, water, organic debris, and rocks), is forest environment that is
studied by many authors (Gyde 2012; Silver 1998; Sudarshana et al. 2012; Krapivin
et al. 2013a

Speci

s
surface, and they are more productive and have greater biodiversity than other types
of terrestrial vegetation. Forests grow in a wide variety of climates, from steamy
tropical rainforests to frigid arctic mountain slopes, and from arid interior moun-
tains to windy rain-drenched coastlines. The type of forest in a given place results
from a complex of factors, including frequency and type of disturbances, seed
sources, soils, slope and aspect, climate, seasonal patterns of rainfall, insects and
pathogens, and history of human in

d). Forests and woodlands occupy about 31 38 % of the Earth '

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fl uence.

is total forest area is just over 4 billion ha, which corresponds to an
average of 0.6 ha per capita. The

The world '

five most forest-rich countries (the Russian
Federation, Brazil, Canada, the United States of America and China) account for
more than the half of the total forest area. Ten countries or areas have no forest at all
and an additional 54 have forest on less than 10 % of their total land area (Figs. 8.1 ,
8.2 and 8.3 ).
Tropical forests have speci c interest. Sudarshana et al. (2012) noted that the

astounding richness and biodiversity of tropical forests are rapidly dwindling. This
has severely altered the vital biogeochemical cycles of carbon, phosphorus, Global
nitrogen etc. and has led to the change in global climate and pristine natural
ecosystems. Sudarshana et al. (2012) have de

ned “ Tropical Forests ” broadly, into

five different themes: