What is the dominant vegetation of the Amazon River basin?

What is the dominant vegetation of the Amazon River basin?

Plant life. The overwhelmingly dominant feature of the Amazon basin is the tropical rainforest, or selva, which has a bewildering complexity and prodigious variety of trees. Indeed, as many as 100 arboreal species have been counted on a single acre of forest, with few of them occurring more than once.

What vegetation covers most of the Amazon basin?

Amazon Basin and Amazon Biome. The Amazon Biome, is defined as the area covered predominantly by dense moist tropical forest, with relatively small inclusions of several other types of vegetation such as savannas, floodplain forests, grasslands, swamps, bamboos, and palm forests.

What is the main crop of Amazon basin?

The people of the Amazon basin mainly grow tapioca, pineapple and sweet potato. They also grow cash crops like coffee, maize and cocoa.

What kind of vegetation is in the Amazon?

Of the 40,000 plants known to exist in the Amazon, 75% are endemic or only found in the Amazon [1]. These include bromeliads, palms, epiphytes, vines, ferns, lilies, orchids and trees (see Trees).

What is the most common plant in the Amazon rainforest?

Palms are thought to be the most abundant plant in the Amazon Rainforest. The most abundant is the açai palm (Euterpe oleracea), which is a canopy species growing over 20 meters (65 ft) tall. Their berries feed a diversity of animals, including macaws, parrots, toucans, monkeys and more.

What type of forests are found in Amazon basin?

Most of the basin is covered by the Amazon rainforest, also known as Amazonia. With a 5.5 million km2 (2.1 million sq mi) area of dense tropical forest, this is the largest rainforest in the world.

Is the Amazon River the largest river?

The Amazon is considered the world’s largest river by volume, but scientists have believed it is slightly shorter than Africa’s Nile. The Brazilian scientists’ 14-day expedition extended the Amazon’s length by about 176 miles (284 kilometers), making it 65 miles (105 kilometers) longer than the Nile.

What agriculture does Amazon Basin practice?

Cattle ranching as the main farming system in the Amazon basin. Since the beginning of the colonization in the 1960s, around 15% of the Amazon forest has been removed through agricultural practices.

What is produced in the Amazon River basin?

It contains some of the world’s largest known reserves of bauxite (nearly 15% of the world total), and industries within the Basin are some of the largest suppliers of iron and steel to world markets. Wood and wood byproducts, gold, and tin are other products from the Basin that are increasingly in demand for export.

What types of forests are found in the Amazon basin?

Butler. Reflecting environmental conditions as well as past human influence, the Amazon is made up of a mosaic of ecosystems and vegetation types including rainforests, seasonal forests, deciduous forests, flooded forests, and savannas.

What is the dominant plants in the tropical rainforest?

Tall, broad-leaved evergreen trees are the dominant plants. The densest areas of biodiversity are found in the forest canopy, as it often supports a rich flora of epiphytes, including orchids, bromeliads, mosses and lichens.