Rainforest Recount
by: William Donaldson
Classification
A rainforest is an area of land that is covered in trees. It's called a rainforest cause of the amount of rainfall it gets; at least 200cm/80 inches of rainfall a year! Rainforest cover only 2 percent of the worlds land andare decreasing due to multple threats.
Climate
Tropical rainforests have warm climates and get lots and lots of rain. Everyday it rains about one inch. rainforests are mostly located around the equator because it is hotter around that part of the Earth.
Location
Rainforests are found betweenTropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. You can find rainforest in Africa, Asia, Australia and Central and south America. The countries with the biggest area of rainforest are Brazil/ Congo, Peru, Indonesia and Camodia. The largest being the Amazon in Brazil.
Structure
The rainforest has several layers: Emergent Layer, Canopy, understory (shrub layer) and the forest floor. The Emergent layer is a the top and the forest floor is at the bottom. The canopy may be more than thirty metres above the forest floor. The forest floor is a dark and humid area where decomposition takes place. This is where leaves and other stuff breaks down on the ground. The canopy is where most animals live. This is at the top of the rainforest and all the leaves look like a big umbrella. This covers the ground from getting any sunlight and light rain.
Flora and Fauna
Rainforests are home to more that one hundred and seventy thousand species of animalts. Most of them live in the canopy but others such as the elephant, tiger,tapir,jaguar and poisonous frogs. An area of just two football feilds may hold up to more than 400 different species of trees. Trees get energy from sunlight that hits their leaves. This sunlight gets turned into energy through a process called photosynthisis.
Threats
There are many things that make threats to rainforests. The biggest one being deforestasion by man-kind. Humans remove trees tomake room for more buildings, crops, oil companies and mining. If deforestation keeps going we will loose all of our rainforest. Another threat is the animals that live there. They eat the seeds that come off the trees, so when the trees get old and die there will be no new trees to replace them.
Conclusion
Rainforests are an amazing place and it is really sad that there might be no rainforest left in the future. Lets save the rainforest.
Bibliography
Rainforest websites
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainforest
www.srl.caltech.edu/personnel/krubal/rainforest/Edit560s6/.../what.html
www.skyrail.com.au/rainforests
www.australia.com/explore/things-to-do/.../nat-australias-rainforests.aspx