TROPICAL RAINFOREST

• Tropical Rainforest - a forest of tall trees in a region of year-round warmth

• Tropical - very hot and often combined with a high degree of humidity

• Rainforest - a thick evergreen forest found in areas of heavy rainfall

• Humidity - amount of moisture in the air

TERMS DEFINED

• Giant bamboo plants can grow up to 9 inches a day

• The trees of a tropical rainforest are so densely packed that rain fallingon the canopy can take as long as 10 minutes to reach the ground.

• Some rainforest monkeys are omnivores, eating both animals andplants.

• More than 2,000 different species of butterflies are found in therainforests of South America.

• The forests of Central Africa are home to more than 8,000 differentspecies of plants.

• Flying animals of Asian rainforests include frogs, squirrels and snakes.

• 80% of the flowers in the Australian rainforests are not foundanywhere else in the world.

• Bats are essential for the pollination of many tropical foodstuffs such asbananas and mangoes.

Did you know?

Philippines and its rainforests…

• Climate : very humid because of all the rainfall, which

amounts to about 250 cm per year

• Temperature : rarely gets higher than 93 °F (34 °C) or

drops below 68 °F (20 °C)

• Humidity : between 77 and 88%

• Amount of rainfall : often more than 100 inches a year

Know more…

• An average of 50 to 260 inches (125 to 660 cm.) of rain

falls yearly.

• Rain forests belong to the tropical wet climate group.

• Rainforests now cover less than 6% of Earth's land surface.

• Scientists estimate that more than half of all the world's

plant and animal species live in tropical rain forests.

• Tropical rainforests produce 40% of Earth's oxygen.

More about Rainforest..

• Emergent trees - spaced wide apart, and are 100 to 240 feettall with umbrella-shaped canopies that grow above the forest

• Upper Canopy - 60 to 130 foot trees allows light to be easilyavailable at the top of this layer; it is where most of therainforest animals live

• Understory - consists of 60 foot trees and is made up of thetrunks of canopy trees, shrubs, plants and small trees; has littleair movement

• Forest Floor - completely shaded, except where a canopy treehas fallen and created an opening; receive so little light thatfew bushes or herbs can grow

Layers of the Rainforest

Animals

Plants

• An area of a rainforest the size of a football field is beingdestroyed each second.

• About 2,000 trees per minute are cut down in therainforests.

• Worldwide, only 20 percent of the original tropicalforests is left. Main reasons are the commercial loggingand the cutting of trees by local people, who need plotsfor agriculture activities.

But…

• As many as 30 million species of plants and animals live intropical rainforests.

• Rainforests are the source of many items that we all use in ourown homes!

• We eat several foods from the rainforest and many medicinesare made from ingredients found only in these areas.

• Some of the common products we know of include:– chocolate– sugar– cinnamon– rubber– medicine– pineapples

Still…

Any question

before we proceed?