Tropical rainforests are wet and hot year-round and have nutrient poor soil (most of the nutrients are… The top layer or canopy contains giant trees that grow to heights of 75 m (about 250 ft) or more. The Jungle is also called the Tropical Rainforest. Fact 28: More than 56,000 square miles of natural forest are lost each year. Fact 12: Over 2000 types of plants that you find in the rainforest can be used to help aide in cancer treatment because they have anti-cancer properties. Top 10 Facts: Rainforest habitats are forests located around the tropics, which is a zone around the equator. Lowland tropical rainforest refers to the majority of tropical rainforest, that is, forest which grows on flat lands at elevations generally less than 3,300 feet (1,000 m)—although elevation may vary. Around 40% to 75% of all biotic species are indigenous to the rainforests. Fact 34: Most of the tropical rainforests, approximately 57 percent, are located in developing countries. Even if you think that you can’t make a difference, you are wrong. Fact 30: Due to large scale deforestation worldwide, only 2.6 million square miles of tropical rainforests remain. A beam of sunlight makes its way through the leaves and lights up the brightly colored wings of a macaw. Fact 8: Rainforests play an essential role in maintaining the Earth’s limited supply of drinking water and freshwater, so they are crucial to the sustainability of the earth. Seventy percent of the plants in the rainforest are trees. Fact 43: There is a surprising variety of animals. This type of habitat is very different in comparison to many of the other habitats that you are used to being around. Only later—during the middle of the Paleogene Period, about 40 million years ago—did cooler, drier climates develop, leading to the development across large areas of other vegetation types. Fact 10: Within four square miles of tropical rainforest, you will find 1500 flowering plant species, 750 types of trees, and many of these plants can be helpful in combating cancer. Updates? Navigate parenthood with the help of the Raising Curious Learners podcast. The world's largest rainforest is the Amazon rainforest; Brazil has the largest extent of rainforest cover, including nearly two-thirds of the Amazon. According to Global Forest Watch, our planet loses tropical forestland equivalent to the size of Bangladesh every year. They experience rainfall nearly every day and there is no dry season. Tropical rainforests have high levels of biodiversity. Tropical rainforests supplied a rich variety of food and other resources to indigenous peoples, who, for the most part, exploited this bounty without degrading the vegetation or reducing its range to any significant degree. As the rainforest species disappear, so do many possible cures for life-threatening diseases. True rainforests are typically found between 10 degrees north and south of the equator (see map); they are a sub-set of the tropical forest biome that occurs roughly within the 28-degree latitudes (in the equatorial zone between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn Some even have a thickness that equals the circumference of a human being. The tropical rainforests are the ones that are most commonly found around the world. Tropical rainforests today represent a treasure trove of biological heritage, and they also serve as sinks for more than 50 percent of all atmospheric carbon dioxide absorbed by plants annually. It is so big that if it were a country, it would be the ninth biggest in the world. More than 2,000 different species of butterflies are found in the rainforests of South America. Currently, 121 prescription drugs sold worldwide come from plant-derived sources. A mature lowland tropical forest consists of several layers. Not until the past century, however, has widespread destruction of tropical forests occurred. The principal areas of tropical deciduous forest (or monsoon forests) are in India, the Myanmar–Vietnam–southern coastal China region, and eastern Brazil, with smaller areas in South and Central America north of the Equator, the West Indies, southeastern Africa, and northern Australia. Climates fluctuated throughout this time, forcing vegetation in all parts of the world to repeatedly migrate, by seed dispersal, to reach areas of suitable climate. This has led some authorities to suggest that the original cradle of angiosperm evolution might lie in Gondwanaland, a supercontinent of the Southern Hemisphere thought to have existed in the Mesozoic Era (252 to 66 million years ago) and consisted of Africa, South America, Australia, peninsular India, and Antarctica. Floral kingdoms, subkingdoms, and major regions of the world. Alternating intervals of climatic amelioration led to repeated range expansion, most recently from the close of the last glacial period about 10,000 years ago. During the most extreme periods (the glacial maxima, when climates were at their coldest and, in most places, also driest), the range of tropical rainforests shrank to its smallest extent, becoming restricted to relatively small refugia. Giant bamboo plants can grow up to 9 inches a day. Retreat of the rainforests was particularly rapid during the period beginning 5,000,000 years ago leading up to and including the Pleistocene Ice Ages, or glacial intervals, that occurred between 2,600,000 and 11,700 years ago. If you have learned about it, whether from school or other sources, then you may know most of this information, if not all of it. Fact 6: Rainforests help to regulate the temperatures around the world and the weather patterns as well. You can find tropical rainforests in Central America, South America, Mexico, Asia, Africa, Australia. It is known for its dense canopies of vegetation that form three different layers. Rainforest Habitat. The Elevation of a rainforest can be at almost any elevation. The tropical rainforest is very rainy, as its name implies. In the drier and more fire-prone places, savannas and tropical grasslands developed. TROPICAL RAINFOREST INFORMATION FOR KIDS By Rhett A. Butler Last update: JULY 19, 2020 . Tropical rainforests represent the oldest major vegetation type still present on the terrestrial Earth. Population and community development and structure, Relationships between the flora and fauna, https://www.britannica.com/science/tropical-rainforest, National Aquarium - Life in the Tropical Rain Forest, Slater Museum of Natural History - Tropical Rain Forest, Khan Academy - Tropical rainforest biomes, British Broadcasting Corporation - Bitesize - Tropical rainforest biomes, The University of Michigan's Global Change - The Tropical Rain Forest. Tropical rainforests (world's most important ecosystems all over the planet). They not only retain many primitive plant and animal species but also are communities that exhibit unparalleled biodiversity and a great variety of ecological interactions. Five families—Amborellaceae, Austrobaileyaceae, Degeneriaceae, Eupomatiaceae, and Himantandraceae—are restricted to rainforests in the tropical Australasian region. Smaller areas of tropical rainforest occur elsewhere in the tropics wherever climate is suitable. Most of the smaller, more delicate plants that are so widespread in the world today evolved later, ultimately from tropical rainforest ancestors. Compounds in rainforest plants are already used to treat malaria, heart disease, arthritis, bronchitis, diabetes, dysentery, glaucoma, hypertension, muscle tension, rheumatism, and tuberculosis, among other health problems. Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription. Like all vegetation, however, that of the rainforest continues to evolve and change, so modern tropical rainforests are not identical with rainforests of the geologic past. Station Leader, 1996 Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition to Macquarie Island, Australian... Rainforest vegetation grows along the northern coast of Ecuador. A Tropical Rainforest is a hot, humid, and flourishing dense forest, usually found around the equator. The tropical rainforest has a very constant climate and is very wet, having between 1500 and 2500 millimeters of rain each year. Fact 11: 70% or more of the plants that are used to treat cancer are found only in the tropical rainforests on the planet. Three families—Illiciaceae, Magnoliaceae, and Schisandraceae—are found predominantly in Northern Hemisphere rainforests. The tropical rainforests are important for a number of reasons to humans. Tropical rainforest ecosystems are the longest living ecosystems on the Earth … Tropical rainforests receive around 100 inches (254 centimeters) of rainfall yearly, and contain tall broad-leaved evergreen trees that form a continuous canopy. Fact 14: Less than one percent of the species of plants in the tropical rainforests have actually been analyzed to determine their value in the world of medicine. They also cool and regulate local micro-climates limiting the Earth’s reflectivity that stabilizes ocean currents, wind, and rainfall patterns. Fact 5: There are two different types of rainforests, and they include both temperate and tropical. A biome is an area with very distinctive plants and animals that have adapted to life in that particular environment. There are hundreds of other interesting facts out there about rainforests that may surprise you as well. Fact 44: Some people choose to live in the tropical rainforest and become farmers for the food and spices people eat. Lowland primary forest, often characterized by more than five forest tier levels, is usually taller and more diverse than montane forest. If you don’t know too much about tropical rainforests, then you will probably be surprised to find that there are a few little known facts out there about them. In Central American rainforests, rival strawberry poison dart frogs might wrestle for up to 20 minutes! As tropical rainforests are one of the oldest biomes on Earth, they have a great variety of animals living there. Within those regions rainforests were limited further to coastal and hilly areas where abundant rain still fell at all seasons. The tropical rainforest is a hot, moist biome where it rains all year long. There are over 2,500 different vine species in the tropical rainforest. Some pine trees in Tasmania’s temperate rainforests can live for 2,000 years! Today large areas of tropical rainforest, such as Amazonia, have developed as a result of this relatively recent expansion. An enormous butterfly flits from plant to plant. RAINFOREST FACTS. In regions lying between the wet tropics and the deserts, climatic zones developed in which rainfall adequate for luxuriant plant growth was experienced for only a part of the year. The vegetation types that evolved were the first tropical rainforests, which blanketed most of Earth’s land surfaces at that time. Landforms in the rainforest include valleys, rolling hills, old river basins, and level areas. Further evidence comes from the growth forms of the most primitive surviving angiosperms: all 13 of the most primitive angiosperm families consist of woody plants, most of which are large trees. The tropical rainforest is a biome with a constant temperature and a high rainfall. (And What to Do With Old Junk Mail), Can You Recycle Lighters? This section provides information about tropical rainforests in a format suitable for children as well as rainforest materials for educators. Here you will find 45+ remarkable facts about the tropical rainforest that you may not have known previously. Structure, Components and Examples of an Ecosystem, 25+ Spectacular Facts About the Amazon Rainforest That You May Not Know About, 40 Remarkable Ways To Reduce Your Carbon Footprint, What is a Green Building and Benefits and Goals of a Green Building, 60% of anticancer drugs originate from natural sources, a football pitch vanished every six seconds, Can You Recycle Frying Pans? Deforestation reduces the moisture released into the atmosphere decreasing rainfall and leading to drought. They hold enormous potential for future discoveries. According to research published in the International Journal of Oncology, more than 60% of anticancer drugs originate from natural sources, including rainforest plants. Contrary to common thinking, not all tropical rainforests occur in places with high, constant rainfall; for example, in the so-called “dry rainforests” of northeastern Australia, the climate is punctuated by a dry season, which reduces the annual precipitation. Tropical rainforests cover only 2 percent of the Earth’s surface, but they have an outsize impact on providing habitat, storing carbon and regulating the flow of water. Also, there are vast amounts of species residing in the tropical rainforest. Fact 2: Rainforests are the forests that receive a high amount of rainfall. Associate Professor of Geography and Planning, University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales. kids.mongabay.com - helping children learn about the rainforest Mongabay is the world's most popular site about the rainforest. Fact 29: Insects make up the majority of living creatures in the tropical rainforest. The rainforest is … Fact 39: In the moist rainforests of South and Central America, sloths move so slowly that algae are able to grow in their fur and also carry beetles and cockroaches in its fur! By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica.
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