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Introduction: Mountain rain forest biotope
Perhaps the first thing you’ll notice on entering the tree fern house is that it’s not as warm and steamy as in some of the other greenhouses here. It’s similarly humid, but distinctly cooler with an average temperature of 15°C. This is the climate of the mountain rain forest.
Mountain rain forests are distinctly different from lowland rain forests in
composition. For example, they contain lots of tree ferns, several examples of
which you can see in this house. Another feature of the mountain rain forest is,
that their trees are covered all over with epiphytes. The enormous diversity of
plants and animals that live in the forest canopy makes the mountain rain forests
the most species-rich terrestrial ecosystem in the world. Only tropical coral
reefs boast a larger number of species.
Unfortunately, most mountain rain forests, which are found near the equator at
elevations of 1,200 to 2,500 meters, are even more endangered than lowland rain
forests. One major threat is coffee cultivation, which is now practiced worldwide,
from Colombia to Vietnam. Vast swathes of these unique, biologically diverse
forests are being cut down to plant coffee.
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Introduction: Mountain rain forest biotope (MP3, 602 KB)
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