Muhammad Nawaz Rajpar

By Mohamed Zakaria, Muhammad Nawaz Rajpar, Ibrahim Ozdemir and Zamri Rosli

Tropical rainforests are the cradle of life (perfect conditions for life) on Earth, i.e., rich in plant species composition (>250 plant species/hectare) and fauna diversity (>50% of animal species in the world). Rainforests occur near the Earth's equator and cover 6% of the Earth's surface across the tropical regions and are characterized by wet climate, i.e., heavy rainfall (125—660 cm), relative humidity (77—88%) and temperature (20—34°C). They are dominated by a wide range of broad-leaved trees that form dense canopy and the most complex ecosystem. Currently, the tropical rainforest ecosystem is changing faster than ever in human history due to anthropogenic activities, such as habitat loss and degradation due to deforestation for timber and conversion into agriculture fields (oil palm plantation), mining, fire, climate change, etc. The habitat loss and degradation had adversely influenced the distribution and richness of the fauna species. The current information on the fauna diversity of tropical rainforest is not sufficient and in the future, more research is required to document the various community parameters of the fauna species in order to conserve and protect them. For better future, conservation, and management, we must identify the major drivers of changes and how these factors alter the tropical rainforest.

Part of the book: Tropical Forests

By Muhammad Nawaz Rajpar

Tropical forests are one of the most diverse (1 ha may contain more than 1000 plant species) and highly productive ecosystems on the earth. They cover 15.0% of the earth’s surface and harbored 80% terrestrial biodiversity. Tropical forests are home to thousands of endemic, rare, endangered, and threatened wildlife species, which play a significant role in ecosystem functions, such as pest control, pollinators, and seed dispersal. Wildlife species are bioindicators of the tropical forest ecosystems, that is, their presence or absence may provide the information about the habitat dynamics, such as vegetation structure, food resources, productivity, and anthropogenic disturbances. Despite being rich in wildlife resources, tropical forests have been extensively lost and degraded by human intervention, and their destruction is still continuous in a variety of ways. The current information on the tropical forests as an ideal habitat for a wide array of wildlife species is inadequate. It is highly essential to examine with solid grasp the suitability of the tropical forest as attractive habitat for diversity of wildlife species to understand their functional role fragile forest ecosystem and to formulate the better conservation and management strategies in future.

Part of the book: Tropical Forests

By Muhammad Nawaz Rajpar, Ibrahim Ozdemir, Mohamed Zakaria, Shazia Sheryar and Abdu Rab

Seabirds are those waterbirds that directly or indirectly depend on the marine environment over the waters, i.e., they foraged at sea either near shore or offshore and inhabit in coastal areas, islands, estuaries, wetlands, and ocean islands. They are mostly aerial waterbirds sailing above sea spending much of their time (weeks, months, and even years) in marine environments or floating on the water surface or diving in deep sea in search of food. Seabirds encompass of 65 genera, 222 marine, and 72 partially marine bird species. Seabirds have been used as good indicators (i.e., bioindicators) of marine ecosystems due to cause-effect association with different microclimate and habitats. They exploit broad scale of habitat, quickly respond to environmental changes, they can be detected easily (i.e., they showed their presence through vocalization), easy to identify, can be surveyed efficiently over large spatial scale, e.g., presence, abundance, and influenced by surrounding habitats as compared to other animals. Employing seabird as bioindicators is a cost-effective and informative tool (well defined matrix) to determine the effects of disturbances, contamination, i.e., effects of pollutants, organic substances, and oil-spills of the marine environment. Seabirds are top predators in the marine food chain and key component of the food web. Seabirds may indicate the status of habitat, reduction in food occurrence and abundance, rate of the predation, an effect of weather (climate change), and threats. The other reason could be that, seabirds often closely associate with inter-site more distinctly than other animals and may breed in the same site each year, easy to catch while incubating and during rearing chicks. Hence, it is crucially important to use seabirds as bioindicators within the context of ecological and spatial parameters to determine the effects of disturbances in the marine environment and for effective conservation and better management of seabirds in the future.

Part of the book: Seabirds