Introduction What is a rainforest? A rainforest is the world’s oldest living ecosystem. They are amazing to look at.
Where is the rainforest? The rainforest is located in South America.
Layers Emergent Layer The emergent layer is the tallest layer. It grows up to 200 feet and trunks that grow up to 16ft around. The Emergent layer has animals that live there. The animals are Eagles Macaws Toucans.
Canopy Layer The canopy layer is the second to the tallest layer. It is the primary layer and makes a roof over the other two layers. The canopy layer has smooth oval shaped leaves. Snakes, Toucans and Tree frogs live there. Understory Layer The understory layer gets very little sunshine so the plants have to get bigger to get sunshine. The plants have to at least grow up to 12 ft. Jaguars,Red-eyed Tree frogs and leopards live here. Forest Floor
It is the very bottom of the rainforest. Almost no plants grow in the forest floor. Since almost no plants grow there. It is very dark. Things decay quickly. The animals that live there are giant ant eaters.
Physical features It is very humid and hot there. It rains a lot in the rainforest. The average rainfall is 60-175 inches a year. The average temperature is 65 to 95 degrees. The climate zone is tropical. It has a lot of trees and rivers.
Human/environment interaction People get around in the rainforest by roads and the rivers. They also trade that way. Also the tribes will usually just walk. The humans are killing the rainforest by deforestation. Also cattle ranching is causing deforestation. People are trying to conserve the rainforest by buying land and not letting loggers get to it. Also ecotourism is trying to save the rainforest but it could be a bad thing because get on a riverboat and driving down the river is spitting oil into the river and killing fishies.
Stuff we get from the rainforest We get a lot of natural resources and we get fruit and plants. We also get some medicine/medication. We also get latex and oxygen from the rainforest. And they give you indigenous plants for nutrients phytochemicals and active constituents.
Tribes
Ticuna Tribe Ticuna tribe celebrates a ceremony called the pelazon. During this celebration the people dye their hair black from the fruit tree called the huito tree. Then a girl’s body is painted entirely with huito and then her face is painted the symbol of the tribe she is in. Then all of the girls hair is removed from her head. The ticuna tribe would pull all of her hair out by hand but then this process would take too long so they use scissors. This ceremony is four days long and nobody is allowed to get sleep during the ceremony. When a ticuna person dies he is put it a canoe with a top carved over it. The ticuna is about to cross the river of death.
Yanomami Tribe The yanomami tribe has over 1,000 gold miners working illegally. The yanomami tribe had migrated from Asia to America around 40,000 years ago. The yanomami’s territory in Brazil is nearly twice the size Switzerland .The yanomamis health is suffering and critical medicine is not reaching them because of corruption or incompetence in Brazil’s national Health Foundation. Cattle ranching is invading and deforesting the eastern fringe of their land. The yanomamis health is now at risk as malaria and other diseases are spreading.
Animals Jaguar has spotted fur and they are the largest animals in the South American Amazon rainforest. Also unlike other cats jaguars are not afraid of water. A jaguar’s predator is humans. A jaguar’s prey is snakes, rodents, capybara, caiman and many more. The part of the rainforest that the jaguar lives in is the dense lowland part of the rainforest where it is humid and damp. The jaguars adaption
is claws to climb up trees. Also their adaptation is sharp teeth to chew something easily and they like to swim so they can catch fish and the jaguar has spotted fur so if a human came they could camouflage themselves and the human would not be able to see the jaguar so the jaguar would not be killed and the jaguar has rough padded feet like a dog so it will add traction to the jaguars body.
Strawberry Poison Frog The strawberry poison dart frogs are highly toxic. The strawberry poison dart frog has blue legs so some people think that the strawberry poison dart frog is wearing a pair of blue jeans. The strawberry poison dart frog can grow up to 1.25 inches and can live up to 16 or more years long. A strawberry poison dart frog eats fruit flies, 1/8 of a cricket, ants and termites. What the strawberry poison dart frog is eaten by is mostly snakes and other mammals. The poison dart frog lives in the damp, moist lowland part of the rainforest. The adaptations of the strawberry poison dart frog are the poison so if someone or something was trying to kill it he could poison the animal and either paralyze the animal or kill the
predator from too much poison. Also the strawberry poison dart frog can climb trees with its sticky feet and the strawberry poison dart frog can hop away from its predators with its extendable legs.
Strangler Fig The strangler fig grows in the canopy layer and starts out as a little tiny seed. The figs are one of the only remaining type of tree remaining in the rainforest since theyre knotted twisted wood is left alone by loggers. The strangler fig has a tiny hole small enough for a female wasp full of eggs to enter it. When the wasp squeezes through the hole she loses both of her wings so she is unable to leave the strangler fig. Then the wasp lays her eggs on a leaf and when the wasp dies the little hole closes up. Then the males develop a faster than females-hatch then they chew open the eggs of the females and mate with them. The strangler fig has a hollow trunk and since it has some nooks and crannies it is home to millions of invertebrates bats rodent’s reptiles amphibians and birds. The strangler fig is a successful tree species, with 900 species of ficus around the world, thanks to its excellent means of dispersal.
Venus fly trap The venus fly trap is also known by its scientific name dionaea muscipula. It is a small plant with four to seven leaves that grow from a short stem. The stems usually reach the maximum size of between 3 to 10 centimeters. When the plant matures, it may produce flowers on a single tall stalk far above the leaves. The traps are located at the tip of the leaves. They are made up of a pair of terminal lobes hinged at the midrib. The top of the lobes contain red anthocyanin pigments and three hair-like trichomes per lobe. The edges of the lobes are fringed by stiff hair-like protrusions, that form a mesh, preventing the prey from escaping when the lobes snap shut.