Borneo: What is that?
- It is the 3rd largest island in the world.
- Borneo is shared my 3 countries(Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei)
- Borneo’s forests are some of the most biodiverse on the planet.
- The island is estimated to have at least 222 species of mammals, 420 resident birds, 100 amphibians, 394 fish, and 15,000 plants!
- Surveys have found more than 700 species of trees in a 10 hectare plot. That is equal to the total number of trees in all of Canada and the United States combined.
2 Responses “Borneo: What is that?” →
Corinne
March 27, 2010
I have always wanted to know more about Borneo and I am excited to follow your trip and your sharing with the Maui students.
I have a Why IS that question for you.
What is it about Borneo forests that makes it so diverse? why there?
I love that it is! 700 species of trees in a 10 hectacre plot is astounding!
Mahalo!
jungletojungle
April 26, 2010
Corinne, I apologize for the late response.. (I just now saw that I needed to approve your comment for it to post..)
The answer is one our favorites as well as the most challenging, and it is:
We don’t have an answer of yet!
And that is the royal “we” of Jungle to Jungle as well a science at large! The debate over why certain places are so dang biodiverse is mutating to this day.
Thanks to our nacent ability to peer into the secrets DNA hold, we have found evidence to disprove some past theories on the subject.
One logical contributor to lots of life forms is that jungles in general do not tend to freeze, so nobody has to have a break in reproduction cycles.
J2J is also very interested in a new idea developing that theorizes a tight set of “jungle etiquette” that allows more population to squeeze into a specific area. Rule #1: Compliance or death.
More on this later..