What is the rubber tree in the Amazon rainforest?
Hevea brasiliensis is a species of rubberwood that is native to rainforests in the Amazon region of South America, including Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. These trees are generally found in low-altitude moist forests, wetlands, riparian zones, forest gaps, and disturbed areas.Sep 15, 2012
Why is the rubber tree important to the Amazon rainforest?
Well known from the products made from their milky sap, the rubber trees that dot the floodplain forest provide an important source of food to fishes and other animals during the annual floods.
How do rubber trees adapt to the Amazon rainforest?
Formerly an evergreen species growing under moderate annual drought, rubber has adapted to withstand months of drought and cold stresses by becoming deciduous; annually shedding leaves in mid-dry season (late January and February).
Why are the trees in the Amazon important?
Not just for food, water, wood and medicines, but to help stabilise the climate—around 76 billion tonnes of carbon is stored in the Amazon rainforest., The trees in the Amazon also release 20 billion tonnes of water into the atmosphere per day, playing a critical role in global and regional carbon and water cycles.
What is the rubber tree?
rubber tree, (Hevea brasiliensis), South American tropical tree of the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae). Cultivated on plantations in the tropics and subtropics, especially in Southeast Asia and western Africa, it replaced the rubber plant in the early 20th century as the chief source of natural rubber.
What is called rubber tree?
rubber tree, (Hevea brasiliensis), South American tropical tree of the spurge family (Euphorbiaceae). Cultivated on plantations in the tropics and subtropics, especially in Southeast Asia and western Africa, it replaced the rubber plant in the early 20th century as the chief source of natural rubber.
What is rubber tree in Philippines?
Para rubber (Hevea brasiliensis Muell.) is a tropical tree crop which requires a warm humid equable climate (20 to 35oC) and a fairly distributed annual rainfall of not less than 200 cm (80 inches) for its optimum growth and productivity (Philippines Recommends for Rubber, 1997).
Does the Amazon have rubber trees?
Brazil's western Amazonian state of Acre has some of the world's richest biodiversity. The state's economy is based on forest products―mainly rubber, Brazil nuts, and timber―that are harvested by rubber tapper communities.Jun 19, 2012
Where are rubber trees found?
H. brasiliensis, often called Rubber Tree, is native to the Amazon region of South America, including Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela. It has also been introduced for commercial production throughout Southeast Asia and Western Africa.
How is rubber harvested in the Amazon?
These trees are native to the Amazon region, one of the most dangerous places in the world to be an environmental defender. Tappers milk the trees for their sap by cutting them and collecting what comes out in small metal buckets. It's what natural rubber is made from, and it's completely sustainable.Nov 4, 2015
Does Amazon basin produce rubber?
The Hevea brasiliensis, the most important type of rubber tree, was an Amazonian species. This is why the countries of the Amazon basin were the main producers of rubber at the beginning of the international rubber trade.