All About Rainforests

1. All About Rainforests A Powerpoint Presentation by Mrs.Meadows

2. What is a tropical rainforest? Rainforests are rich and wonderful worlds. They are filled with tall trees, strange animals, giant bugs, and amazing plants. The largest flowers in the world grow in the rainforests. The smallest frogs and the biggest spiders live in the rainforests, too! Rainforests have year round warmth and plenty of rainfall. Rainforests can get 60-70 inches of rain a year and the temperatures of a rainforest are usually between 70-80 degrees year round.

3. Where are tropical rainforests located? • Tropical rainforests are located all around the world. Almost all rainforests lie near the equator. (The imaginary line that runs all around the middle of the earth.) They are located in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and on islands in the Pacific Ocean. • The largest tropical rainforest is the Amazon Rainforest in South America. The Amazon rainforest is bigger than the states off Texas, California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Minnesota, and Alaska combined!

4. Why are rainforests important? • Tropical rainforests have more kinds of trees than any other area in the world. In the Amazon Rainforest, scientists have counted about 280 kinds of trees in just a 2 ½ acre area. (An acre is equal to about 2 ½ football fields.) Most forests of this size in the U.S. have fewer than 7 species. Also, more than half of the world’s species of plants and animals live in tropical rainforests. • One of the most important reasons tropical rainforests are so important to us is that half of the medicines in the world used everyday come from rainforest plants. In addition, products we use everyday come from rainforests resources.

5. What does a tropical rainforest look like? • A tropical rainforest looks like a building with several different floors. The floors are called layers. Each layer is home for different kinds of plants and creatures. The four layers of a rainforest are: • 1. Emergent Layer • 2. Canopy Layer • 3. Understory Layer • 4. Forest Layer

6. 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 A Emergent Layer B. Canopy Layer C. Understory Layer D. Forest Floor

7. What does each layer of a rainforest look like? • The emergent layer is top level of a rainforest. The emergent level consists of the few trees that grow even taller than the canopy trees in the second layer. The distance from the ground to the top of an emergent tree can be greater than the height of a 14 story building. Harpy eagles live in the tops of the emergent trees. • The canopy layer is right below the emergent layer. The tops of the trees in a rainforest form the canopy. The canopy is like living under a big green umbrella. In most rainforests, the canopy is more than 100 feet above the ground. The canopy is noisy. Most of the animals in a rainforest live here. Many of these animals live their whole life in the canopy and never touch the ground.

8. The third level of a rainforest is the understory later. The understory is dark and shadowy because the leaves of the canopy are so close together that only a tiny bit of sun shines through. The trees here are not very tall. Several different wild cats live here along with snakes, monkeys owls, and bats. • The bottom layer of a rain forest is the forest floor. It is very dark and quiet. The ground is covered with rotting leaves. A few ferns and bushes grow among the giant trunks of the canopy trees. The animals living here are quiet. Jaguars prowl silently, looking for food and snakes slither over the tree roots. Millions of insects creep through the dead leaves.