|
|
What's a Rainforest? | Why Save The Rainforest? Tropical rainforests are dense, mostly evergreen, broadleaf forests found near the equator in Latin America, Hawaii, Madagascar, Indonesia, Australia, Asia, and Africa. In true rainforests, it rains almost all year round and daylight lasts twelve hours every day. The air is always hot and steamy. Rainforests are crossed by streams and rivers and filled with a huge variety of plants and animals. Rainforests are nature's celebration of life! Tropical rainforests are the oldest kind of forest. They have been growing on Earth for millions of years, longer than almost anything else. They are the richest natural places, with abundant plants and animals. Our oldest human ancestors probably lived in rainforests, and we still depend on them for many foods, medicines, woods, fibers, and saps. Thousands of kinds of trees, all different sizes, grow in the rainforest. Flowers, ferns vines, lichens, liverworts, mosses and algae grow there too. Rainforest soil is usually deep but not fertile. The fertility of the soil has been used up by rainforest plants. When plants die and decay—or when leaves fall and rot—the food inside them returns to the soil to feed sprouting seeds and growing plants. Rainforests are homes for more animals, birds and insects than any other places on Earth. For example, jaguars, pumas, jaguarundis, margays, ocelots, tapirs, peccaries, monkeys, crocodiles, coral snakes, hawksbill turtles, hicatees, ants, red-eyed tree frogs, iguanas, toucans, jabiru storks, macaws, blue morpho and monarch butterflies, and pacas live in rainforests. Each of these creatures has its own special place to live among the forest trees. Rainforests are crisscrossed by streams and rivers. Some rainforests grow near coastal seawaters. These watery places are homes for crocodiles, turtles, manatees, dolphins, and many kinds of fish. Manatees especially depend on rainforests. They swim from the ocean into the rainforest's freshwater estuaries, where they feed on aquatic plants. Rainforest Layers The Forest Floor Jaguars, ocelots, peccaries, and tapirs live on the forest floor, the lowest layer of the forest. The floor is covered by fallen leaves and decaying plant and animal matter. A few small plants, like ferns and ginger, grow among the tree roots. The floor is sometimes crowded with baby trees, called "seedlings." These little trees are working hard to grow up to the sunlight blocked by older, taller trees. The Understory Monkeys and margays live above the floor in the dense tangle of vines, young trees, and small or flat-topped trees called the forest understory. Cocoa trees and a hollow-limbed tree called "cercropia" grow there, and so do other trees and large ferns. Not much sunlight reaches this part of the forest, which is a little cooler and wetter than the canopy, the next layer up. The Canopy The canopy, or rainforest "roof," is the densest, most luxuriant forest layer, made up of the tops of trees. These tree tops are usually 50 to 100 feet above the forest floor. Sloths and butterflies and most other rainforest animals live in this layer. Flowering plants like bromeliads and orchids grow on tree trunks and branches in the canopy. Mahogany trees grow in the canopy, but they are so valuable for their wood that most of them have been cut down. Fig trees grow there, too. The canopy is hot and a little drier than the understory and the forest floor. Trees and other plants in the canopy absorb most of the energy that comes from sunlight falling on the forest. They use this energy in a process called "photosynthesis" to breathe in dirty air, full of carbon dioxide, and breathe out pure air, full of oxygen. In the same process, they create sugar and starch, and their leaves, fruit, and bark become food for human beings and animals. The Emergent A small number of the very tallest trees grow taller than the canopy. The crowns of these giant trees are the emergent layer. They are like islands floating in a bright green sea of leaves. Toucans and other birds live in the emergent layer, with blue morpho butterflies and many other insects. Scientists build platforms in the tops of giant trees and study birds and insects that live in the canopy and the emergent layer. Threats to Rainforests Two hundred years ago, eight million square miles of tropical rainforest covered one-fifth of the Earth's land surface. More than half of this forest has been burned, bulldozed, or cut down. Now only 3.4 million square miles remain. Every second of every day, rainforest the size of two football fields (2.47 acres) is destroyed. Some scientists believe that more than one hundred animal and plant species become extinct every week. Why Save The Rainforests? • Rainforests are homes for more kinds of plants and animals than any other places on Earth. Almost half the rainforest's plants and animals haven't been named by scientists yet! • Rainforests produce huge amounts of oxygen and purify the Earth's air. • Two-thirds of all the fresh, flowing water on the Earth is stored in rainforests. • Tropical rainforests provide up to 40 percent of all medicines, including more than two thousand plants used for anti-cancer drugs. Hundreds—or possibly thousands—of the rainforests' healing plants haven't been identified by scientists. • Many useful industrial products and foods come from rainforests, including rubber, wax, cosmetics, chocolate, pineapples, cinnamon, coffee, and nuts. • Rainforests are beautiful, strange, and interesting. The wonder of rainforests provides unsurpassed joy and contentment. |
 |