Importance of Cloud Forests
- Watershed function. Because of the cloud stripping strategy the effective rainfall can be doubled in dry seasons and increase the wet season rainfall by about 10 percent. Experiments of Costin and Wimbush (1961) showed that the tree canopies of non-cloud forests intercept and evaporate 20 percent more of the precipitation than cloud forests, which means a loss to the land component of the hydrological cycle.
- Vegetation. Tropical montane cloud forests are not as species-rich as tropical lowland forests but they provide the habitats for many species that are found nowhere else. For example, the Cerro de la Neblina, a cloud covered mountain in the south of Venezuela accommodates many shrubs, orchids and insectivorous plants which are restricted to this mountain only.
- Fauna. The endemism in animals is also very high. In Peru, more than one third of the 270 endemic birds, mammals and frogs are found in cloud forests. One of the best known cloud forest mammal is the Mountain Gorilla (Gorilla b. beringei). Many of those endemic animals have important functions such as seed dispersal and forest dynamics in this ecosystems.
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