Science Help: Tropical Rainforest? and Orchid

Science Help: Tropical Rainforest?

How have the following producers adapted to the Tropical Rain forest:
-Shrubs
-Ferns
-Bamboo
-Banana Trees
-Vines

How have the following producers adapted to the Tropical Rain forest:
-Sloth
-Humming Birds
-Anteater
-Scorpions
-Golden Lion


inflorescence best answer:

Answer by gardengallivant
Because the vines use surrounding plants for their structural support they must find a host plant to climb.
Lianas have an ability to seek shade when they put out their first growth after germination. This shade seeking is how the vine Monstera gigantea finds potential host trees, by their shadows. The vines detect and grow towards the darkest region of their area. Skototropism (growth toward darkness) or the reverse of phototropism.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1975Sci...190..804S

Shrubs and trees have adapted to time their fruit maturation with when the birds are resident, between migrations. Bird fruit is small, brightly colored and often single seeded to be swallowed whole by birds.


Banana plants have flowers hanging in a large group (an inflorescence) in two sexes. The female flowers are born near to the base and the male near the tip. This prevents rain washing pollen from the male to the female and reduces self fertilization. Instead the pollination is assisted by fruit bats like the least blossom bat Macroglossus minimus.

Many plants have long tubular flowers held singly or in clusters so they are horizontal or pendant to prevent rain from washing away pollen and limit access to the nectar to hover flying pollinators with long tongues. To attract pollinating birds the flowers signal the birds with vivid red colorations easily seen by tetrachromatic birds but not by insects or pollinating mammals.

Hummingbirds have evolved to access these large quantities of protected nectar. Hummingbirds have a special wing stroke that is essentially a figure 8 based on a unique shoulder joint that allows the wing to turn upside down on the backstroke. This provides lift without forward movement. Their wings are much longer than wide for less load and a easier movement with less resistance through the air.

In Asia the climate remained wetter and heavily forested so grasses could not displace resident vegitation but had to compete in place. Bamboo, the large woody forest species, are polyploids while the smaller sun tolerant bamboos are diploids.
Competition in the forest selected shade tolerant bamboos with an increased vegetative growth, rather than ones with an increased flowering. The polyploid genome was selected for an increase in the number of leaf nodes so it can grow taller and a faster metabolic rate of growth.. The polyploidy provides an increase in lignin production for strength to support increased height. In the Asian regions bamboo dominates it simply out competes other tall plants as the understory forest plants.
http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:GdJKY1NTWdIJ:e-collection.ethbib.ethz.ch/eserv/eth:23225/eth-23225-01.pdf+bambusoid+evolution&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESga81Bq0E9DLc8ORAUaYiFFfEeEFfQ2DMZlf9PRlBEL9lX7uLCbSW3EdlHh-6uFWTWdFoNRDVkSeA7mhCgoeKQalkTJZM4ryqmKrjXPL2HtmsOTz5qV--xA0Y07r96m42IFsDdQ&sig=AHIEtbR7dN4y5cOJ2Lyojl6JP0FVQ59VCA
Sloths adapted to foliage based diets rather than compete with a myriad of birds, mammals, and reptiles for high energy resources like fruit and tubers. Sloths are dedicated browsers eating tree foliage with little competition for the food source. This low nutrient diet requires a lot of digestion but provides little energy for other metabolic activity. Sloths are the only creature to carry host specific algae growing inside their hollow hair shafts for cryptic camouflage since they cannot escape predation in other more active ways. Their hair parts along the belly and hangs towards their backs to shed water. The hair lays this way because they hang beneath branches much of the time.

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