2. What is a Rainforest?
• Rainforests are very dense, warm, wet
forests, havens for millions of plants and
animals that exist nowhere else on earth.
3. Why are rainforests important?
• The plants of the
rainforest generate
much of the Earth's
oxygen.
• These plants are also
very important to
people in other ways;
many are used in new
drugs that fight
disease and illness.
4. Rainforests and the
Ecosystem
• Tropical rainforests cover about 7% of the
Earth's surface and are VERY important to
the Earth's ecosystem. The rainforests
recycle and clean water.
• They also remove carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere and store it in their roots, stems,
leaves, and branches, deterring the
greenhouse effect.
5. Strata of the rainforest
•EMERGENTS!
They are giant trees that
grow to 240 feet tall with
umbrella-shaped
canopies that tower
above the forest. They
house many birds and
insects.
What are the tallest
trees in the
rainforest called?
6. Strata of the Rainforest
• CANOPY: The upper parts of the trees. This
leafy environment is full of life in a tropical
rainforest, housing insects, birds, reptiles,
mammals, and more!
7. Strata of the Rainforest
• UNDERSTORY: This layer is made up of tree
trunks, shrubs, vines and small trees. There
is little air movement, and the humidity is
high. This level is in constant shade.
8. Strata of the Rainforest
• FOREST FLOOR: Most areas of the forest
floor receive so little light that few plants can
grow there but is teeming with animal life,
especially insects. The largest animals in the
rainforest generally live here.
9. Two Types of Rainforest
• Do you know what the two types of
rainforests are?
•Temperate
And Tropical
10. Types of Rainforest
• Temperate rainforests
are much younger
than their tropical
relatives, less than
10,000 years old,
compared to tropical
rainforests that may
be millions of years
old!
11. Temperate Rainforests
• Temperate rainforests are much more scarce
than tropical rainforests. They are found on
the western edge of North and South
America, where moist air from the Pacific
Ocean drops up to 200 inches of rain a year.
12. Where are Tropical Rainforests
Located?
• Tropical rainforests are found in a belt
around the equator of the Earth. There are
tropical rainforests across South America,
Central America, Africa, Southeast Asia and
Australia.
13. Rainfall
• It is almost always raining in a
rainforest. The Amazon rainforests gets
about 2 inches of rain each week!
• How much is that a year?
That’s NINE feet of rain a year!
14. Rainfall
• The rain is more even throughout the
year in a tropical rainforest.
• In a temperate rainforest, there are wet
and dry seasons. During the "dry"
season, coastal fog brings moisture to
the forest.
15. Temperature
• The temperature in a tropical rainforest never
freezes and never gets very hot, ranging
between 75° F and 80° F.
• Temperate rainforests have variation, with
summer temperatures rising to about 80° F
and winter temperatures near freezing.
16. Rainforest Soil
• The soil of a tropical rainforest is
only about 3-4 inches (7.8-10 cm)
thick and is ancient. Thick clay lies
underneath the soil.
• Temperate rainforests have soil that
is richer in nutrients, relatively
young and less prone to damage.
17. Tropical Rainforest Soil
• Only 20 percent of the nutrients of the
rainforest are in the soil; 80 percent of the
nutrients remain in the trees and plants.
• The soil of the rainforests is only suitable
for being rainforest soil, as crops do not
grow well in it.
• When forests are cut down, the soil erodes
quickly and soon only a dry desert remains.
18. Food from the Rainforest
• What foods originated in
the rainforest?
•And many more, including Macadamia nuts,
bananas, cucumber, cocoa, coffee, tea,
avocados, papaya, mango, yams, sweet potato,
cinnamon, ginger, oranges, grapefruit, lemons,
and sugar cane!
Pineapple?
Coconuts?
Peanuts?
All of these are correct!
19. People of the Rainforest
• There are many groups of people who live in the
tropical rainforests. Most have lived in scattered
villages in the rainforests for hundreds or
thousands of years, obtaining all of their materials
from the forest.
• Many medicines we have today come from medicine
men who utilize plants from the rainforest.
20. Indigenous People
• Forest people are mostly hunter-gatherers
and have small gardens in cleared areas of
the forest. Since the soil in the rainforest is
so poor, the garden areas must be moved
after just a few years.
• Most indigenous populations are declining,
mostly because of diseases and
governmental land seizure.
21. Animals
• Millions of insects, reptiles, amphibians,
birds, and mammals call the rainforest home.
Tropical rainforests have a greater diversity
of plants and animals than any other place.
22. Animals
• However, many
species of rainforest
animals are
endangered and
many others have
gone extinct as their
habitat is being
destroyed.
23. Interesting Animals
• What bird lives in the
rainforest and has a
HUGE beak?
A TOUCAN!
Unlike Toucan Sam, real Toucans
don’t eat Fruit Loops for breakfast
but chow down on whole fruit, bird
eggs and tree frogs!
24. Interesting Animals
• What snake is the largest in the world?
The Green ANACONDA!
It can grow up to 40 feet long, and has
been known to eat jaguars and alligators!
25. Interesting Animals
• Bonobos- also
known as pygmy
chimpanzees,
live only on the
left bank of the
Congo River.
They are the
rarest of all great
apes!
26. Interesting Animals
• Jaguars are graceful but fierce
predators that have such strong jaws
they can kill their prey with a single
swift bite. They also grow to be six feet
long, making them the true king of the
jungle!
27. Interesting Animals
• What animal is
the loudest land
animal?
Why, the HOWLER
MONKEY of course!
Its howl can be
heard up to 3.4 miles
away!!!
28. Interesting Animals
• The Morpho butterfly is an iridescent
blue butterfly that lives in rainforests of
South America. It has eyespots on its
backside to scare away predators!
29. Interesting Animals
• What is the
name of these
primates with
big brown
eyes?
These are tarsiers! They spend their entire
life in trees. On the ground, they can only
hop!
30. Interesting Animals
• The three-toed sloth is
the slowest-moving
mammal in the world,
spending all its life
hanging upside down
from trees, even giving
birth upside down!
• Green algae often
grows on their back,
giving them
camouflage in the
trees!
31. Endangered Forests
• Because the number of
people living on the planet
increases every year, the
number of forest products
needed also increases,
forcing temperate and
tropical rainforests to be cut
down.
32. Destruction of the Rainforest
• Farmers clear rainforest land to grow their
crops, but cannot reuse the same land year
after year.
• Ranchers clear the rainforest because the
land is cheap, so they can sell cattle at low
prices.
• Loggers cut trees for building houses and
making furniture and paper.
33. Disappearing Forest
• "The rainforests of the world are
disappearing at a rate of 80 acres per
minute, day and night… …major
climatic and other environmental
changes will occur if this continues."
34. The Disappearance of the
Rainforest
• “Tropical rainforests once covered
more than 15 percent of the Earth’s
land area… they now amount to less
than 7 percent”.
» (Tropical Rainforest Coalition, 1996)
