If you were to travel back in time about 70 million years to the Pleistocene Era in what was to become Southeast Asia, you would notice the advent of rainforests throughout the region. These rainforests have been operating continuously since then, and are endowed the highest rainforest biodiversity on the planet. However, deforestation is running amok in SE Asia, and many if not most of the primary rainforests there will be destroyed in or lifetimes.
The high levels of biodiversity came about because SE Asia remained warm even through several ice ages on our planet. A location on the equator surrounded by water helped the SE Asia rainforests escape the Earth’s periodically cooling climate over the last 70 million years. Even as global water levels rose and fell over time, SE Asia forests survived and provided a place where many species could re-establish themselves following an ice age. Subsequent higher water levels caused by melting glaciers caused the land mass that contains Malaysia and its islands to be cut off by water, allowing Darwinian evolution to create many new adaptations to existing species as well as conditions that supported useful mutations. The effect has been an explosion of new species and differentiated types of animals and plants. However, one family of trees towers above all the rest in terms of its proliferation, the Dipterocarpaceae. Many vines and clinging figs enter into epiphytic relationships with this family of trees – the swinging vines of Tarzan fame.
One interesting factoid regarding the SE Asia rainforest is that flowers don’t bloom and fruit at the same time. For instance, some trees fruit but once a decade but flower annually. Other trees engage in flowering for only a few hours once a year. Because the trees break up the wind, seeds are normally distributed by animals and insects. Only the tallest trees, such as the Kapok, have the ability to disperse seed into the wind.
The climate of SE Asia includes two monsoon seasons, summer and winter. The winter monsoons are of about the same power as Atlantic hurricanes. Summer monsoons carry an even bigger punch. All in all, the Malaysian peninsular racks up almost 80 inches of rain every year. Any climate changes that affect monsoons can lead to devastating consequences, such as huge wildfires.
It is a shame that illegal logging has led to a biological catastrophe in Indonesia that has affected thousands of species of animals and plants. Mutualism is lost in such circumstances, and massive extinctions could result in the collapse of the SE Asia rainforest.