Equatorial forest

Equatorial rainforest is a response to an equable, moist climate, which is continuously warm, frost-free,
and has abundant precipitation in all months of the year (or, at most, only one or two dry months). A large
water surplus characterizes the annual water budget, so that soil moisture is adequate at all times and the
export of large amounts of stream runoff allows permanent removal of bases and silica from the soils of
the region. In the absence of a cold or dry season, plant growth goes on continuously throughout the
year. Individual species have their own seasons of leaf shedding, possibly caused by slight changes in
the light period.

Variations in the equatorial rainforest structure are found in specialized habitats and where man has
disturbed the vegetation. Where the forest has been cleared by cutting and burning (as for small plot
agriculture or highways), the returning plant growth is low and dense and may be described as jungle.
Jungle can consists of a tangled growth of lianas, bamboo, scrub, thorny palms, and thickly branching
shrubs, constituting an impenetrable barrier to travel, in contrast to the open floor of the climax rainforest.

Coastal vegetation in areas of equatorial rainforest is highly specialized. Coasts, which receive
suspended sediment (mud) from river mouths, and where water depths are shallow, typically have
mangrove swamp forest, consisting of stilted trees. The mangrove prop-roots serve to trap sediment from
ebb and flood tidal currents so that the land is gradually extended seaward. Mangroves commonly consist
of several shoreward belts of the red (Rhizophora), the back (Avicennia), and the white (Laguncularia)
mangrove. Another common coastal salt-marsh plant of the humid tropics is the screw-pine (Pandanus).
Typical of recently formed coastal deposits are belts of palms, such as the cocoanut palm (Cocos
nucifera). The principal world areas are: the Amazon lowland of South America; the Congo lowland of
Africa and a coastal zone extending westward from Nigeria to Guinea; and the East Indian region, from
Sumatra on the west to the islands of the western Pacific on the east. Poleward borders of these
equatorial rainforest regions are, of course, transitional into rainforest of higher latitudes, particularly that
found on tropical windward coasts and that of coastal monsoon rainforest belts of south and Southeast
Asia.

Tropical rainforest is in many respects structurally similar to equatorial rainforest but has distinct
difference imposed upon it by its location, which is on windward coasts, roughly from 10° latitude to the
tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Epiphytes are abundant because of continued exposure to humid air
and cloudiness of the maritime tropical air masses, which impinge upon the coastal hill and mountain
slopes.

In terms of global distribution, the tropical rainforest is represented on the world map by those areas of
rainforest which lie between 10° and 25° latitude. The Caribbean lands represent one important area of
tropical rainforest, although the rainforest is predominantly limited to windward locations.

In southern and southeastern Asia tropical rainforest is extensive in coastal zones and highlands, which
have heavy monsoon rainfall and a very short dry season. The Western Ghats of India and the coastal
zone of Burma have tropical rainforest supported by orographic rains of the southwest monsoon. In the
zone of combined northeast trades and Asiatic summer monsoon are rainforests of coast of Vietnam and
the Philippine Islands. In the southern hemisphere belts of tropical rainforest extend down the eastern
Brazilian coast, the Madagascar coast, and the coast of northeastern Australia.