Ecological property the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra. A Essay

Ecological property the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra. A study on the flora and fauna - Essay Example Ecological property the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra. A study on the flora and fauna The administration of these forests is run by the Directorate General of Forest conservation and forest protection. It is situated along the north, south and central part of the equator alongside the Bukit Barisan mountain range. These three areas have a much defined kind of flora and fauna, exhibiting a lot of diversity in their composition. Overall, these areas can be considered to be a hotbed for ecological diversity. However, the temperature can be said to be warm in general with higher temperatures, higher rainfall being experienced for nine months of the year in the wetter parts and seven months in the drier areas (Marshall et al., 2010). This has also been one of the contributing factors in the higher variety of the species. The humidity can also be highlighted, as it tends to maintain a constant value of close to 60 percent, especially above the altitudes of 1,700 metres. Overall, the temperature displays a consistency of being around 20-28 degree Celsius throughout the year (68 to 83 Fahrenheit). The Indonesian archipelago comprises 10 percent of the population of flowering plants and Sumatra is a part of the Sundaland hotspot. It has one of the largest rainforests in Southeast Asia, ranking along the likes of Borneo and Papua New Guinea (Thornton, 1997). The number of species of plants that inhabit this region is staggering. Almost 10,000 species of plants are present in these forest that range from coastal to sub-alpine conditions. It presents a rare opportunity for environmentalists; as such a diverse set of flora is very difficult to spot in any other part of the world. The constituent flora However, this flora is primarily shared in its constitution and composition with the region comprising west of Malisia spanning from the south of Thailand to the islands of New Guinea. Specifically, the northern region of Lake Toba has a very distinct Sumatran flora which is largely montane and sub-alpine kind of vegetation (Thornton, 1997). This area has 12 pe rcent of the species and around 17 percent of species which are endemic in composition. All the species are extremely rich, and the number totals close to 4,000. There are major differences between the highland and the lowland vegetation in these areas, and also among the north and south due to the presence of natural barriers. One of the distinctive features in the park is the presence of phyto-geographic regions, which vary according to the altitude. The tropical conditions are existent up to the elevation of 1,000 metres. In that, around 300 metres of the vegetation comprises of the coastal forest and other lowland varieties, 29 percent is the foothill forest from the elevation levels of 400 metres to 1, 300 metres, close to 31 percent is montane in the elevations of 1,000 to 1,500 metres; which is extremely rich in Fagaceae  and Lauraceae (Whitten, Damanik , Jazanul & Nazzaruddin , 2010)  . The lower 15 percent of those elevations are rich in mosses, rattans and palms, whils t the upper 20 percent is having acid loving plants as basal constituents. The remainder has subalpine forest and ericoid scrubs form an elevation of 2,400 metres to 3,400 metres. Around 91 of the species of flora have been