Tropical Rainforest

Tropical rainforests, sometimes colloquially called "jungles", are the rainiest and humid areas on Earth. They are tropical because they exist close to the equator between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. These biomes are areas of high diversity, and only cover about 6% of globe's surface. Plants tend to have adaptations to survive frequent rainfall and poor soils.

Additional Resources

• Bromeliads promote plant diversity in the forest by enriching the soil with nutrients (Phys.org 18Dec2025)

└Epiphytic tank bromeliads enhance nutrition and growth of terrestrial seedlings: Experimental evidence of a novel mechanism of facilitation (Pereira et al., 2025)

• Amazon could lose over a third of forest cover by century's end (15Dec2025 Phys.org)

└Amazon forest faces severe decline under the dual pressures of anthropogenic climate change and land-use change (Bultan et al., 2025)

• Researchers find promising adaptations to climate change in tropical forests (Phys.org 4Dec2025)

└Drying suppresses fine root production to 1 m depths and alters root traits in four distinct tropical forests (Cordeiro et al., 2025)

• Newly discovered Colombian orchid faces 'foretold' extinction under climate change (Phys.org 19Nov2025)

└Chronicle of a death foretold: Lepanthes nasariana (Orchidaceae, Pleurothallidinae), a newly described high-Andean orchid facing a worst-case climate change scenario (Moreno et al., 2025)

• A genetic switch lets plants accept nitrogen-fixing bacteria (Phys.org 6Nov2025)

└Two residues reprogram immunity receptors for nitrogen-fixing symbiosis (Tsitsikli et al., 2025)

• Who is setting fire to the Amazon? (Phys.org 6Nov2025)

• How does neighbor density affect seedling survival in tropical trees and lianas? (Phys.org 26Sep2025)

└Lianas exhibit stronger conspecific negative density dependence than trees on tropical seedling survival (Sun et al., 2025)

• Some tropical trees cool their leaves to survive the heat—but not all species have ways to cope (The Conversation 6Sep2025)

└Middleby et al. (2025) Local Adaptation Drives Leaf Thermoregulation in Tropical Rainforest Trees

• DNA from rainwater provides a window into tropical canopy biodiversity (Phys.org 24Aug2025)

└Zinger et al. (2025) Elusive tropical forest canopy diversity revealed through environmental DNA contained in rainwater

• Drought has a limited effect on tropical-tree growth—but hotter planet threatens that resilience (Phys.org 1Aug2025)

└Zuidema et al. (2025) Pantropical tree rings show small effects of drought on stem growth

• Daily mismatch between temperature and humidity helps shield cloud forests from dryness (Phys.org 8Jul2025)

└Shih et al. (2025) Impact of Diurnal Temperature and Relative Humidity Hysteresis on Atmospheric Dryness in Changing Climates

• Thunderstorms are a major driver of tree death in tropical forests (Phys.org 1Jul2025)

• Tree rings reveal increasing rainfall seasonality in the Amazon (Phys.org 17Jun2025)

└Cintra et al. (2025) Tree ring isotopes reveal an intensification of the hydrological cycle in the Amazon

• Amazon canopy trees reveal complex strategies for managing intense light and heat (Phys.org 15Jun2025)

└Ziccardi et al. (2025) Seasonal and intracanopy shifts in the fates of absorbed photons in central Amazonian forests: implications for leaf fluorescence and photosynthesis

• How the disappearance of mastodons still threatens native South American forests (Phys.org 13Jun2025)

└Gonzalez-Guarda et al. (2025) Fossil evidence of proboscidean frugivory and its lasting impact on South American ecosystems

• Why Amazon Forests Can’t Regrow After Gold Mining (ScienceBlog 2Jun2025)

└Atwood et al. (2025) Landscape controls on water availability limit revegetation after artisanal gold mining in the Peruvian Amazon

• What would happen if the Amazon rainforest dried out? This decades-long experiment has some answers (Phys.org 29May2025)

└Sanchez-Martinez et al. (2025) Amazon rainforest adjusts to long-term experimental drought

• Democratic Republic of the Congo's plan for the world's largest tropical forest reserve would be good for the planet: Can it succeed? (Phys.org 28May2025)

• Lianas are taking over the rainforests, and it's visible from space (Phys.org 6May2025)

└Rueda-Trujillo et al. (2024) Global increase of lianas in tropical forests

└Visser et al. (2025) When can we detect lianas from space? Toward a mechanistic understanding of liana-infested forest optics