Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
the dry season, as termites have higher moisture content. Many amphibians are
active for only a few months out of the year, with the period of activity coinciding
with the warm, wet season. Several amphibians in tropical seasonal forests time
their breeding to coincide with the wet season to take advantage of increased water
availability.
Tropical Invertebrates
Most invertebrates found in seasonal forests are also found in the rainforest. Butter-
flies and moths, beetles, bees, roaches, mosquitoes, and stick and leaf insects are all
abundant. Termites are plentiful year-round, playing a major role in the decomposi-
tion of organic matter and making nutrients available to vegetation. Termites are
both terrestrial and arboreal in these forests and an important source of protein for
many insectivores, especially in the dry season. Ants are extremely common in sea-
sonal forests. Several species have evolved specialized mutualistic behaviors or
affinities with certain plant species. By providing protection from herbivores, or
competing plant species, ants find shelter and food in the trees. Beetles, mosquitoes,
stick and leaf insects, katydids, leaf hoppers, and mantids have developed adaptive
behavior, body structure, or coloration to adapt to their surroundings. Dragonflies
are insect predators of the seasonal forests, hunting small insects including butter-
flies and mosquitoes. Scorpions, whip scorpions, and spiders call this biome home.
Distinctive climate and the evolution of a high diversity of plants and animals
with specialized lifecycles and adaptive behaviors make the tropical seasonal forest
a unique biome. Along with plants and animals, humans have adapted successfully
to this biome, finding it to be well suited to their needs. People have been living in
and using the products of these forests for tens if not hundreds of thousands of
years. Long-term use has lead to the loss of much of the seasonal forests that once
existed. Without a considerable effort to preserve, maintain, and sustain the tropi-
cal seasonal forests, this biome is in clear danger of disappearing.
Human Impact
Tropical seasonal forests have been used by humans for many years, and it is likely
that any existing dry forest has been used as a source of firewood or charcoal pro-
duction at one point in history. In Panama, for example, evidence of human modi-
fication of vegetation is more than 10,000 years old. Forest clearing and shifting
cultivation has an even longer history in the Asian-Pacific region, one of the places
where agriculture first developed. The anthropogenic uses of seasonal forest are so
firmly placed in environmental history that the true nature and original extent of
the seasonal forests may never be known. Many current savannas, scrublands, and
thorn woodlands are believed to be the result of disturbances in dry forests.
The effects of widespread loss of tropical seasonal forests are wide ranging and
profound. They include loss of biodiversity, climate change, changes
in
