Rainforest collapse
Encyclopedia
Habitat fragmentation
Habitat fragmentation as the name implies, describes the emergence of discontinuities in an organism's preferred environment , causing population fragmentation...
to the point where little rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...
biome
Biome
Biomes are climatically and geographically defined as similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, and are often referred to as ecosystems. Some parts of the earth have more or less the same kind of abiotic and biotic factors spread over a...
is left, only to survive in isolated refugia.
In the Carboniferous
Carboniferous
The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Devonian Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Permian Period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Mya . The name is derived from the Latin word for coal, carbo. Carboniferous means "coal-bearing"...
, coal forest
Coal forest
Coal forests were the vast swathes of wetlands that extended over much of the tropical land areas during late Carboniferous and Permian times. These forests got their name because they accumulated enormous deposits of peat which later changed into coal...
s, great tropical wetlands, extended over much of Euramerica (Europe and America). This land supported towering lycopsids which fragmented and collapsed abruptly. The collapse of the rainforests during the Carboniferous
Carboniferous
The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Devonian Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Permian Period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Mya . The name is derived from the Latin word for coal, carbo. Carboniferous means "coal-bearing"...
has been attributed to several possible hypotheses including climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
. Specifically, at this time climate became cooler and drier, conditions that are not favourable to the growth of rainforests and much of the biodiversity within them. This sudden collapse affected several large groups including lycopsids and amphibians. Interestingly, reptiles prospered in the new environment due to adaptations that let them thrive in drier conditions.
Future rainforest collapse is a hypothesis only. Rainforests may collapse due to habit fragmentation by human beings. A classic pattern of fragmentation is occurring in many rainforests including those of the Amazon
Amazon Basin
The Amazon Basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries that drains an area of about , or roughly 40 percent of South America. The basin is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela...
, specifically a 'fishbone' pattern formed by the development of roads into the forest. This is of great concern, not only for the loss of a biome with many untapped resources but also because animal species extinction is known to correlate with habitat fragmentation.