The Rain Forest- Where is it? What is it?
The Rain Forest- Where is it? What is it?



Tropical rain forests now cover less than 5% of the earth’s land surface (compared to 12% a century ago), but they are home to perhaps half of all the earth’s species. Forests of this kind exist at relatively low elevations, usually below 4300 feet. The largest areas of such forest are in the Amazon basin of South America with extensions into coastal Brazil, Central America, southern Asia, the Congo Basin in Africa and Mexico, as well as some of the islands of the West Indies and Oceania.Tropical rain forests are scattered in an uneven green belt roughly between the Tropic of Cancer north of the Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn south of it. Most of the world’s tropical rain forests are within 10 degrees of the equator. Tropical rain forests consist of tall, evergreen , mostly broad-leaved trees.About 70% of all plant species in these forests are trees.The branches of these trees tend to form many layers, each of which shelters a distinct array of creatures. Most of them spend their entire lives in the canopy and are rarely seen on the ground below. There are more species of plants and animals in tropical rain forests than in all the rest of the world’s ecosystems combined.


Different types of rain forests exist. These are the Equatorial rain forest (forests found in the equatorial zone 10 degrees either side of the equator ), Subtropical rain forest (forests that extends beyond the Tropics), Monsoon rain forest (forests that experience pronounced changes in season, a cycle of wet and dry seasons.), Montane rain forest (forests that can establish itself on tropical mountains) and Mangrove rain forest (not a rain forest, but it fringes the rain forests at their coastal limits.


Tropical soils are generally diverse, ranging from volcanics to almost pure quartz sands, although perhaps one-half of the total rain forest area is composed of reddish latosols (soils from which the nutrients have been stripped). Warm climates and copious precipitation in the humid Tropics leads to strong weathering of the soils. Approx four inches of rain falls monthly, where the mean monthly temperature exceeds 75F and frost never occurs.


The rain forest literally feeds on itself. Most of the nutrients the plants need are supplied by the branch and leaf litter that covers the forest floor and that-thanks to the constant heat and humidity - is rapidly decompposed by termites, fungi, and other organisms. Nothing is wasted; everything is recycled. Through transpiration and evaporation from the forest canopy, the rain forest even recycles up to 75% of the rainfall it receives. Later, the clouds formed by this process water the forest again.


[FACTS]Amazon is the world’s largest river basin. 20% of all river water flows here. About 60% of the Amazon basin, nearly two million square miles, lies within Brazil. Annual deforestation in Brazil is nearly 8000 square miles. Tropical forests happen to occur in economically depressed, developing countries of the Third World.

<--BACK

NEXT-->