Topic Last Updated on 16-07-2024
FOREST LONGEVITY
The first forest was formed around the same time that trees appeared, about 400 million years ago. To be more precise, the first forest appeared a thousand years after the first sprouts emerged from the ground: that’s how much time nature needs to “populate” the soil from scratch and grow a real forest (this is, of course, without any human intervention). The dead plants fed the soil with humus (the dark, organic material that forms when plant matter decays), and mosses and shrubs began to grow at the foot of trees. Their fruits attracted herbivores, and afterward came the predators…that’s a brief history of any forest on Earth.
This doesn’t mean that all of our forests are 400 million years old: over the history of our planet many of them have faced insurmountable difficulties. For example, rainfall can decrease, but forests need water — at least 7.9 in per year. Any cataclysm, like a volcano eruption, can leave open wounds on the forest or even wipe it off of the face of the Earth entirely. But there are exceptions. The Australian Daintree Rainforest was formed when its territory was part of the ancient supercontinent, Gondwana. Are the trees in this forest several hundred million years old? Of course not. Old trees were gradually replaced by newer ones because plants, like any other living creature, have to die sooner or later.
The Resilience of Trees
Yet trees can be surprisingly resilient. One of the oldest trees on the planet is in California: according to scientists, it grew there more than 4,800 years ago! It’s even older than the Great Pyramid of Giza.
There’s a popular opinion that forests are the “lungs” of our planet. Surely that many plants in one place produces an enormous amount of oxygen! While this is true, the forests and their inhabitants also tend to breathe and consume most of the oxygen produced. Therefore, it’s more correct to consider oceans and seaweed to be our “lungs.” Forests, though, are important for something else — they retain carbon. There’s enough of this element in the atmosphere, but if all the carbon stored inside of plants was to escape into the air, enormous climatic changes would be unavoidable. By the way, because trees contain carbon, they form deposits of coal after their deaths.
STRATIFICATION IN FOREST SOCIETY
In the forest there is no equality: every tree fights for a place in the sun. The tallest trees are called dominant, and those that receive the least light are suppressed. In an attempt to survive, weakened plants sometimes fuse roots with stronger ones, thus obtaining all the nutrients necessary for survival. Animals in any forest, whether it’s the taiga or the jungle, live on different levels and rarely drop by neighboring “floors.”
- On the forest floor is soil covered with fallen leaves and other forest waste; it is home to most of the local inhabitants, from unicellular organisms to large mammals.
- Snakes, tree frogs, and other animals live on trunks and in bushes.
- Birds, bats, and butterflies live in the tops of tall trees. This tier is called the canopy.
- Monkeys and birds are found in the undergrowth, below the crowns of trees.
DIVISION OF FORESTS
Scientists divide forests into several types depending on which climate zone they live in and which trees predominate there.
RAINFOREST
These are dense evergreen thickets that can be found along the Equatorial belt of our planet. Here, too, grow trees that sometimes shed their leaves, gradually and in portions, regardless of the season. Although rainforests are not as common as deciduous forests, their flora and fauna are much richer. Here, you can find a good half of all species that live on our planet.
MIXED FOREST
This occurs when both coniferous and deciduous species grow in one forest.
DECIDUOUS FOREST
The leaves of trees in this forest always fall with the arrival of autumn. This plant mechanism didn’t develop immediately: the first deciduous trees appeared about 60 million years ago. By that time, Pangaea had already divided into Gondwana and Laurasia, so deciduous forests are not very similar across continents, and they rarely contain the same species.
CONIFEROUS FOREST
Moreover, the order of these sets of fossils is the same in different places. When Smith decided to classify rock layers based on these sets of fossils (which is why they are called index fossils), it turned out that the vertical sequence of the layers is the same everywhere. He then assumed that layers with the same index fossils were formed at the same time, and he combined layers from several different outcrops in one diagram.
CLOUDY, PREHISTORIC, RADIOACTIVE
There are many forests on Earth, but not everyone gets fame and glory. You can find out what the various forests are famous for in our “hall of fame.”
BIAŁOWIEŻA FOREST
LOCATION Poland and Belarus
AREA over 1,190 mi²
