Wetlands

Wetlands

Common Plants (cont.)

Common Plants

Common Animals

Alstroemeria psittacina

Amaranthus blitum

Native to the Mediterranean, and colloquially called "Purple Amaranth," people cook and roast its leaves

Another ornamental plant, it's often called the Princess Lily and is classified as an invasive species

Tabebuia roseo-alba

Aspidosperma quebracho-blanco

Often harvested for its hard and brittle wood, or to make charcoal, this tree is found all over South America

Frequently used as an ornament, or for nectar collection, this tree is less popular than others within its genus with hummingbirds

Jaguar

(Panthera Onca)

Capybara

(Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris)

The third largest feline in the world, it is an apex predator, and has an extremely powerful bite

The largest rodent in the world, it is very social, forming groups of up to one hundred animals

Common Animals (cont.)

Amount of Light

Black Howler Monkey

(Alouatta caraya)

Southern Crested Caracara

(Caracara plancus)

Climate

• Sunlight doesn't differ extremely throughout year
• The average per day, in December is 13:15, and in June, it's 11:01

A very common large bird of prey in Brazil, it actually stands to benfefit from deforestation

It can produce a howl that is heard 5 kilometers away, and it sleeps up to 70% of the day

Average annual precipitation(inches): 39.4

Temperature range(°C): 8-38 or 0-40

Climate zone: Tropical wet and dry

The Pantanal

The largest area of wetland in the world, it's located in South America, mostly in Brazil, spanning more than 54,000 miles

Geographic Factors

Adaptation

Dam Building

Recieving water from upland areas, the Pantanal is a gentle sloped basin that releases into the Paraguay River. During the wet season, the water can rise to above fifteen feet.

Adaptation (cont.)

The Pantanal is very flat, and has no mountains, but it is surrounded by a higher plateau, which holds various rivers and subsequently brings sediment and erodes the floodplain.

Competition

The Capybara developed the adapatation of being semi-aquatic. Its ears, eyes and nose are all high up on its head, allowing it to stay underwater, see, breathe and smell at the same time. In addition, it can close its ears to prevent water from getting in. This allows it to hide effectively from predators and get around the wet area easier.

Bibliography

Competition (cont.)

The Pantanal is close to 27 large dams, 6 of which are still being built. Another extremely large project has been proposed: build a massive hydroelectric dam by redirecting the Paraguay and Parana rivers. This would be disastrous to the Pantanal because it would increase downstream flooding, decrease total flooded area in the dry season, and expose the delicate ecosystem of the Pantanal to new, possibly invasice species.

The Jaguar also adapted to the wet and often flooded Pantanal environment by having the ability to swim. Jaguars are some of the best mammalian swimmers, and this allows them not only to catch prey in the water, but also corner prey near water, which is very important because hunting is hard even in such a rich biome.

One example of competition in the Pantanal is between the Blue-winged Macaw (Primolius maracana) and Hyacinth Macaw (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus), both of which compete for the finite food supply of nuts.

Another example of competition would be between ocelots (Leopardus pardalis) and pumas (Puma concolor), who both prey on capybaras (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris).

Alex Trevithick