AN OVERVIEW OF TROPICAL RAINFORESTS INCLUDING SOME TRIVIA ABOUT RAINFORESTS

2. TROPICAL RAINFOREST

3. • Tropical Rainforest - a forest of tall trees in a region of
year-round warmth
• Tropical - very hot and often combined with a high
degree of humidity
• Rainforest - a thick evergreen forest found in areas of
heavy rainfall
• Humidity - amount of moisture in the air
TERMS DEFINED

4. • Giant bamboo plants can grow up to 9 inches a day
• The trees of a tropical rainforest are so densely packed that rain falling
on the canopy can take as long as 10 minutes to reach the ground.
• Some rainforest monkeys are omnivores, eating both animals and
plants.
• More than 2,000 different species of butterflies are found in the
rainforests of South America.
• The forests of Central Africa are home to more than 8,000 different
species of plants.
• Flying animals of Asian rainforests include frogs, squirrels and snakes.
• 80% of the flowers in the Australian rainforests are not found
anywhere else in the world.
• Bats are essential for the pollination of many tropical foodstuffs such as
bananas and mangoes.
Did you know?

5. Philippines and its rainforests…

6. • Climate : very humid because of all the rainfall, which
amounts to about 250 cm per year
• Temperature : rarely gets higher than 93 °F (34 °C) or
drops below 68 °F (20 °C)
• Humidity : between 77 and 88%
• Amount of rainfall : often more than 100 inches a year
Know more…

7. • An average of 50 to 260 inches (125 to 660 cm.) of rain
falls yearly.
• Rain forests belong to the tropical wet climate group.
• Rainforests now cover less than 6% of Earth's land surface.
• Scientists estimate that more than half of all the world's
plant and animal species live in tropical rain forests.
• Tropical rainforests produce 40% of Earth's oxygen.
More about Rainforest..

8. • Emergent trees - spaced wide apart, and are 100 to 240 feet
tall with umbrella-shaped canopies that grow above the forest
• Upper Canopy - 60 to 130 foot trees allows light to be easily
available at the top of this layer; it is where most of the
rainforest animals live
• Understory - consists of 60 foot trees and is made up of the
trunks of canopy trees, shrubs, plants and small trees; has little
air movement
• Forest Floor - completely shaded, except where a canopy tree
has fallen and created an opening; receive so little light that
few bushes or herbs can grow
Layers of the Rainforest

9. Animals

10. Plants

11. • An area of a rainforest the size of a football field is being
destroyed each second.
• About 2,000 trees per minute are cut down in the
rainforests.
• Worldwide, only 20 percent of the original tropical
forests is left. Main reasons are the commercial logging
and the cutting of trees by local people, who need plots
for agriculture activities.
But…

12. • As many as 30 million species of plants and animals live in
tropical rainforests.
• Rainforests are the source of many items that we all use in our
own homes!
• We eat several foods from the rainforest and many medicines
are made from ingredients found only in these areas.
• Some of the common products we know of include:
– chocolate
– sugar
– cinnamon
– rubber
– medicine
– pineapples
Still…

13. Any
question
before we
proceed?