Many of the plants found in rainforests are being used to make medicine, including anti-cancer drugs, along with beauty products and foods. Rainforests produce, store, and filter water, protecting against soil erosion, floods, and drought. Tropical rainforests are centers of biodiversity, holding an estimated half of the world’s plants and animals, many of which have yet to be catalogued (some scientists estimate that it’s two-thirds of the world's plants). When we lose rainforests, we lose an important natural resource. In many cases, such as logged areas, the soil damage makes it difficult for rainforests to regenerate, and the biodiversity found in them is irreplaceable. In other countries, such as Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Democratic Republic of the Congo, loss rates are rising considerably. Two countries accounted for 46 percent of the primary (meaning old-growth, undisturbed) tropical rainforest loss in 2018: Brazil, which is home to more than half the Amazon, and Indonesia, where forests are cut down to make way for producing palm oil, which can be found in everything from shampoo to saltines. Tropical rainforest now covers about six percent of Earth's land surface. About 17 percent of the Amazonian rainforest has been destroyed over the past 50 years, and losses recently have been on the rise. Rainforest lossĭeforestation is endangering rainforests worldwide, driven by logging, mining, agriculture, and ranching. Even when it's not raining, these clouds keep the rainforest humid and warm. The moisture helps create the thick cloud cover that hangs over most rainforests.
Plants release water into the atmosphere through a process called transpiration. Rainforests are often partly self-watering. On the dark forest floor, few plants are able to grow and decaying matter from the upper layers is prevalent, feeding the roots of the trees. The upper canopy, a deep layer of vegetation roughly 20 feet (6 meters) thick, houses most of the rainforest's animal species and forms a roof that blocks most light from reaching below.īelow the canopy, the understory is a low-light layer dominated by shorter plants with broad leaves, such as palms and philodendrons. In the top emergent layer, trees as tall as 200 feet (60 meters) grow far apart and tall, their branches reaching above the canopy. Tropical rainforests are found near the equator, with high average temperatures and humidity, while temperate rainforests lie mostly in coastal, mountainous areas within the mid-latitudes.Ī rainforest is typically made up of four key layers: emergent, upper canopy, understory, and forest floor. Found on every continent except Antarctica, rainforests are ecosystems filled with mostly evergreen trees that typically receive high amounts of rainfall.
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