HOME | DD

Description
River: Rio Corujas - Tapiraí (SP), Brazil.
In the Atlantic Forest.

"The Atlantic Forest is the second of the most expressive forests in South America, only losing to the Amazon Forest, the largest in the planet. This Forestal Domain extends itself for an area relatively parallel to the Brazilian coast

The climate in the region comprised by the Atlantic Rain Forests has two seasons, defined mainly by the rainfall regime

The Atlantic Forest extends itself along the mountains and slopes facing the sea, as well as along the coastal plains. It owes its existence to the elevated atmospheric humidity brought by maritime winds. The humid winds condense by the coast in the form of rains, when climbing to the cold areas of higher altitude.

Besides the high rainfall, there is, on mountain tops, water condensation in the form of fog. This occurs even in summer and spring months, during the hot hours of the day.

Not all the oriental coast of Brazil, however, presents identical climate conditions and pluviometric indexes compatible with the existence of Rain Forests. For this reason, there are also natural interruptions of the forests along the Serra do Mar.

Nowadays, the Brazilian Atlantic forests are almost completely devastated, there remains only around 5% of preserved areas from their original extension, at the time of Brazil's discovery. The most representative section of what remains is found in the South and Southeast regions, where the landscape of steep escarpments makes difficult the access and devastation.

The robust Atlantic Forest, with an arboreal vegetation of around 30 metres, and trees that surpass the canopy, reaching 40 metres of height, presents intense shrubby vegetation on the inferior stratum. It is a forest of great diversity of vegetation with many ferns, including the arbores cents, besides terrestrial orchids and palm trees, among which the Euterpes edulis can be found. Around 10 metres high, it is from their trunks that palm hearts are extracted for food consumption. Besides moss carpets and innumerable fungi, the Atlantic Forest is very rich in lianas and epiphytes, such as ferns, orchids and bromelias.

These last ones, with their leaves disposed in rosettes, always retain a certain amount of water, creating a favorable habitat for the development of a particular fauna, such as various larvae and adult species of arthropods and amphibious.

Besides the terrestrial fauna, the Atlantic Forest also has a rich fauna of fish which inhabits the small streams that permeate forested areas. Many of these fish orientate themselves by vision, to localize food or reproductive partners, as well as for social behavior reasons. They are incapable of surviving in cloudy or clear waters, subjected to intense luminosity, as when the removal of the forest occurs. Besides, the maintenance of mild temperatures in the stream and soil is only possible thanks to the intense vegetable covering.

The Atlantic Forest has, besides a richness of invertebrates, especially arthropods, an important fauna of vertebrates. However, many species are still unknown to science and risk not even being discovered if the destructive process of forests continues.

One of the main characteristics of the fauna living in the Atlantic Forest, as in other tropical forests in the world, is the fact of being diversified and marked by the presence of many endemic species. With many of these species having a low population density, there is a great number of rare species.

There are around 25 species at risk of extinction listed among the Brazilian primates, and some of them are endemic of the Atlantic Forest. This is, for instance, the case of four species of capuchin monkeys (Leontopithecus spp) and of the spider monkeys (Brachyteles aracnoides), the largest of neotropical monkeys.

The most affected areas of the Atlantic Forest are precisely the most important from the conservationist point of view. They are the remaining forests of South Bahia and Espírito Santo, which house the last examples of genus and species of plants and animals threatened by extinction. In the Southeast region, where great metropolis' like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro were developed in former areas of the Atlantic Forest, there are still relatively large stretches, where areas of environmental protection have recently been created and even turned into the Reserve of the Atlantic Forest Biosphera. These are the last refuges of one of the richest ecosystems in the world.

Source: [link]

Description
River: Rio Corujas - Tapiraí (SP), Brazil.
In the Atlantic Forest.

"The Atlantic Forest is the second of the most expressive forests in South America, only losing to the Amazon Forest, the largest in the planet. This Forestal Domain extends itself for an area relatively parallel to the Brazilian coast

The climate in the region comprised by the Atlantic Rain Forests has two seasons, defined mainly by the rainfall regime

The Atlantic Forest extends itself along the mountains and slopes facing the sea, as well as along the coastal plains. It owes its existence to the elevated atmospheric humidity brought by maritime winds. The humid winds condense by the coast in the form of rains, when climbing to the cold areas of higher altitude.

Besides the high rainfall, there is, on mountain tops, water condensation in the form of fog. This occurs even in summer and spring months, during the hot hours of the day.

Not all the oriental coast of Brazil, however, presents identical climate conditions and pluviometric indexes compatible with the existence of Rain Forests. For this reason, there are also natural interruptions of the forests along the Serra do Mar.

Nowadays, the Brazilian Atlantic forests are almost completely devastated, there remains only around 5% of preserved areas from their original extension, at the time of Brazil's discovery. The most representative section of what remains is found in the South and Southeast regions, where the landscape of steep escarpments makes difficult the access and devastation.

The robust Atlantic Forest, with an arboreal vegetation of around 30 metres, and trees that surpass the canopy, reaching 40 metres of height, presents intense shrubby vegetation on the inferior stratum. It is a forest of great diversity of vegetation with many ferns, including the arbores cents, besides terrestrial orchids and palm trees, among which the Euterpes edulis can be found. Around 10 metres high, it is from their trunks that palm hearts are extracted for food consumption. Besides moss carpets and innumerable fungi, the Atlantic Forest is very rich in lianas and epiphytes, such as ferns, orchids and bromelias.

These last ones, with their leaves disposed in rosettes, always retain a certain amount of water, creating a favorable habitat for the development of a particular fauna, such as various larvae and adult species of arthropods and amphibious.

Besides the terrestrial fauna, the Atlantic Forest also has a rich fauna of fish which inhabits the small streams that permeate forested areas. Many of these fish orientate themselves by vision, to localize food or reproductive partners, as well as for social behavior reasons. They are incapable of surviving in cloudy or clear waters, subjected to intense luminosity, as when the removal of the forest occurs. Besides, the maintenance of mild temperatures in the stream and soil is only possible thanks to the intense vegetable covering.

The Atlantic Forest has, besides a richness of invertebrates, especially arthropods, an important fauna of vertebrates. However, many species are still unknown to science and risk not even being discovered if the destructive process of forests continues.

One of the main characteristics of the fauna living in the Atlantic Forest, as in other tropical forests in the world, is the fact of being diversified and marked by the presence of many endemic species. With many of these species having a low population density, there is a great number of rare species.

There are around 25 species at risk of extinction listed among the Brazilian primates, and some of them are endemic of the Atlantic Forest. This is, for instance, the case of four species of capuchin monkeys (Leontopithecus spp) and of the spider monkeys (Brachyteles aracnoides), the largest of neotropical monkeys.

The most affected areas of the Atlantic Forest are precisely the most important from the conservationist point of view. They are the remaining forests of South Bahia and Espírito Santo, which house the last examples of genus and species of plants and animals threatened by extinction. In the Southeast region, where great metropolis' like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro were developed in former areas of the Atlantic Forest, there are still relatively large stretches, where areas of environmental protection have recently been created and even turned into the Reserve of the Atlantic Forest Biosphera. These are the last refuges of one of the richest ecosystems in the world.

Source: [link]