The Rainforest and their Importance.

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The Rainforests

As part of my geography coursework, I writing a piece on the rainforest, it’s ecosystems and it’s relevance to the world as a whole. I will produce a piece which is informative and helps to highlight the rainforest and I will demonstrate my knowledge and understanding of it’s workings, and greater implications for the wider world. We are all familiar with the rainforests, but do we really understand them or have any real knowledge of them? These questions I will seek to answer in this piece of work.

Rainforest form an integral part of the earth’s biosphere, covering around 2% of the earth’s surface and being present in every continent except Antarctica. A rainforest is a forest characterized by its extremely heavy rainfall (which is usually a mammoth 1750 to 2000mm each year!). These rainforests form two common subtypes; the temperate and the tropical rainforests. Over a fifth of the world’s water can be found within the boundaries of the rainforest, and similarly, so can a large chunk of the world’s wildlife. The rainforest is estimated as being home to around 50% of the world’s plants and animals. If you were to take a sample of a 4 mile patch in the rainforest, then you would probably find around 1,500 flowering plants, 150 species of butterflies, 400 species of birds, and of course 750 species of trees- which just goes to highlight how expansive the forest’s flora and fauna is. Most people will commonly associate the rainforest with its vast abundance of trees, and indeed, this is true. As with all forests, the rainforest’s trees are the very base of its ecosystems, and form a structure of layers based on height and shared characteristics.      

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At the base of the rainforest is the forest floor, this is a dark and damp area- receiving only 2% of the forest’s sunlight, and a large amount of collected water. It is dark, warm and humid; and it is difficult for common plants and animals to survive in; so it is only really a habitat to specially adapted organisms. Just above the forest floor comes the shrub layer, it is very dark- covered by the canopy, but can provide a habitat to specially adapted plants which are usually small, but with large leaves so that they can catch ...

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