Freshwater swamp forest

The freshwater swamp forests are moist forests found in freshwater environments. Though they are found in tropical rainforest regions, its species diversity is varied from that of the lowland forests (which supports a higher diversity of plant species) on account of constraints in dispersal, germination and establishment, due to its seasonal extremes.

The forests are wetland ecosystems of global importance, especially because they provide very valuable ecosystem services such as regulation of flood and maintenance of water quality, and provide suitable habitat for the conservation of wetland ecosystems (flora and fauna).

Freshwater swamp forest can be broadly characterized as forest that is subjected to flooding with relatively mineral-rich fresh water.

As tropical freshwater swamp forest is a formation of tropical rainforest, several environmental conditions are common between freshwater swamp forests and other tropical rainforest formations (e.g. high humidity levels and solar irradiance).

Within the ecosystem, the flora is equally varied according to site conditions, inundation and floral history, disturbance regimes, land use and water quality. Freshwater swamp forests have several sources of water, including rain, rivers, and groundwater.

Freshwater swamp forests generally develop behind the mangrove forest on deltas with high sediment inflow, such as the Mekong and Chao Phraya deltas.

Freshwater swamp forest soils are relatively nutrient-rich, unlike ombrotrophic swamp forests, which receive nutrients solely via rain. In freshwater swamp forests, nutrients and alluvial soils are subsequently deposited within the forest via rain and water table fluctuations.
Freshwater swamp forest

Aquatic biomes

A large region with similar conditions and communities is called a biome. The last major kind of biome is the aquatic biome. This includes all freshwater lakes, ponds, streams and rivers, along with the world’s saltwater oceans.

In all, water covers around 75 percent of the earth’s surface and is home to an extraordinary diversity of life. The limiting factors in aquatic biomes are different in several important ways. Recall that temperature is a limiting factor on land, but water has many fewer temperature fluctuations.

In aquatic environments, the water provides the added benefit of more buoyancy for organisms as support against gravity. The amount of light available in aquatic biomes is a limiting factor in ways that are not experienced on land.

The plants and animals living in freshwater biomes are adapted to the low salt concentrations characteristic of these environment.

Freshwater biomes vary in spatial scale from just a few square meters to thousands of square kilometers. They are found in every continent, have varied origins and have diverse combinations of biotic and abiotic factors.
Aquatic biomes

The Amazon rainforest

Amazon rainforest is the largest tropical rainforest in the world. Located in northern South America, it occupies almost one-third of the South American continent.

Most of the forest lies in Brazil, though it reaches into eight other countries as well. The rainforest is made up of broad-leaved trees, flowering shrubs, and vines.

The Amazon is believed to contain over half of the world’s plant and animal species. A very important of the ecosystem, the Amazon rainforest contains trees and plants that human breath by changing carbon dioxide into oxygen. For this reason the Amazon rainforest is often called the ‘lungs of the planet earth’.

Almost 50% of modern rainforest area lies within the Amazon drainage basin, forming the largest continuous are of tropical forest on the planet. The vegetation of Amazonia is important to regional and global hydrological budgets and climate.

Amazon River is the second longest rover in the world – about 4000 miles. It contains of Earth’s freshwater. A vast rain forest makes up more than two thirds of the Amazon River’s drainage basin.

The river stream and tributaries flow though Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and the three Guyanas. The river and the rainforest are inseparable. The Amazon rainforest is as diverse as the Amazon basin is large and vast areas remain unexplored and scientifically unresearched.
The Amazon rainforest