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Camp Internet's Global Gardening Studies are open to all Camp Expedition Teams. RAIN's Youth Technology Corps members are Expedition Team Leaders for Communities taking part.
Rain Forest Biome
In an average year in a tropical rain forest, the climate is very humid because of all the rainfall, which amounts to about 1500 mm per year.
The rain forest has lots of rain because it is very hot and wet in rain forests. The hotter the air, the more water vapor it can hold.
It rains usually about 1/8 of an inch per day.
This climate is found near the equator.
That means that there is more direct sunlight hitting the land and sea there than anywhere else.
The sun warms the land and sea and the water evaporates into the air.
The warm air can hold a lot of water vapor. As the air rises, it cools.
That means it can hold less water vapor.
Then as warm meets cold, condensation takes place and the vapor forms droplets Clouds form. The clouds then produce rain.
It rains more than ninety days a year and the strong sun usually shines between the storms.
The water cycle repeats often along the equator.
The main plants in this biome are trees. This is important because in the rain forest, some rain never gets passed the trees and to the smaller plants and grounds below.
Trees in this climate reach a height of more than 164 feet.
They form a canopy.
The forest floor is called understory.
The canopy also keeps sunlight from reaching the plants in the understory.
Between the canopy and understory is a lower canopy made up of smaller trees.
These plants do receive some filtered sunlight.
The tropical rain forest is classified as Af meaning tropical forest The A is given to tropical climates that are moist for all months which have average temperatures above 18 degrees Celsius. The f stands for sufficient precipitation for all months. The latitude range for my climate is 15ƒ to 25ƒ North and South of the equator.
The
annual precipitation of a rain forest is greater than 1500 mm. In a rain
forest there is a short dry season. In only a month the rain forest receives
4 inches of rain. The rain forest is different from a lot of other climates.
In other climates,the evaporation is carried away to fall as rain in far
off areas, but in the rain forests, 50 percent of the precipitation comes
from its own evaporation. A lot of the rain that falls on the rain forest
never reaches the ground, instead it stays on the trees. It stays on the
trees because the leaves act as a shield. The average temperature of a rain
forest is about 77 degrees Fahrenheit. The rain forest is about the same
temperature year round. The temperature never drops below 64 degrees Fahrenheit.
Rain forests are so hot because they are found near the equator. The closer
to the equator you are, the more solar radiation there is. The more solar
radiation there is, the hotter it is. Rain forest are never found in climates
which ha temperatures 32 degrees Fahrenheit and below because the plant
life will not be able to live in the frost. All the plants will die out
if the rain forest is cooler. The plants that make up the understory of
a rain forest have adapted to the small amount of sunlight that they receive.
Ferns and mosses do well, along with epiphytes. These are plants that grow
on other plants. They can be found growing on branches of tall trees. There
are many different plant species found in the rain forest. The tropical rain forest is a forest of tall trees in a region of year-round warmth. An average of 50 to 260 inches (125 to 660 cm.) of rain falls yearly. Almost all rain forests lie near the equator.
Rainforests now cover less than 6% of Earth's land surface but they are home to over 50% of all known species of living organisms. Tropical rainforests produce 40% of Earth's oxygen.
A tropical rain forest has more kinds of trees than any other area in the world. Scientists have counted about 280 species in one 2 1/2-acre (1-hectare) area in South America.
About one-fourth of all the medicines we use come from rainforest plants. Curare, from a tropical vine, is used as an anesthetic, and to relax muscles during surgery. Quinine, from the cinchona tree, is used to treat malaria. A person with lymphocytic leukemia has a 99% chance that the disease will go into remission because of the rosy periwinkle. More than 1,400 varieties of tropical plants are thought to be potential cures for cancer.
All tropical rain forests resemble one another in some ways. However, each of the three largest ones--the American, the African, and the Asian--has a different group of animal and plant species.
Each rain forest has many species of monkeys, all of which differ from the species of the other two rain forests.
In addition, different areas of the same rain forest may have different species.
Many kinds of trees that grow in the mountains of the Amazon rain forest do not grow in the lowlands of that forest.
There are three very distinct layers of trees in a tropical rain forest.
These layers have been identified as the emergent, upper canopy and lower canopy. Emergent trees are widely spaced, and 100 to 120 feet tall with umbrella-shaped canopies that grow above the forest. Because emergents are exposed to drying winds, they tend to have small leaves. Some species lose their leaves during the brief dry season in monsoon rainforests.
The upper canopy of 80 foot trees allows light to be easily available at the top of this layer, but greatly reduced below it. In the lower canopy of 60 foot trees there is little air movement.
As a result the humidity is constantly high.
Besides these three canopy layers, a shrub/sapling layer receives about 3 percent of the light that filters in through the canopies. These stunted trees are capable of a sudden growth surge when a gap in the canopy opens above them.
The ground layer consists of sparse plant growth. Less than 1 percent of the light that strikes the top of the forest penetrates to the forest floor. Most areas of the forest floor receive so little light that few bushes or herbs can grow there. As a result, a person can easily walk through most parts of a tropical rain forest.
The air beneath the lower canopy is almost always humid. The trees themselves give off water through the pores (stomata) of their leaves. This process, called transpiration, can account for as much as half of the rain in the Amazon rain forest.
Rainforest plants have made many adaptations to their environment.
With over 80 inches of rain per year, plants have adaptations that helps them shed water off their leaves.
Many plants have drip tips and grooved leaves for this purpose.
To absorb as much sunlight as possible on the dark forest floor the leaves in a rainforest are very large.
Other plants grow in the upper canopy on larger trees to get sunlight.
These are the epiphytes such as orchids and bromeliads.
Many trees have buttress and stilt roots for extra support in the shallow, wet soil of the rainforests.
Many species of animal life can be found in the rain forest. Common characteristics found among mammals and birds (and reptiles and amphibians, too) include adaptations to a life in the trees, such as the prehensile tails of New World monkeys. Other characteristics are bright colors and sharp patterns, loud vocalizations, and diets heavy on fruits.
Insects make up the largest single group of animals that live in tropical forests. They include brightly colored butterflies, mosquitoes, camouflaged stick insects, and huge colonies of ants.
Scientists estimate that more than half of all the world's plant and animal species may live in tropical rain forests.
The Amazon river basin rainforest contains a wider variety of plant and animal life than any other biome in the world.
The second largest population of plant and animal life can be found in scattered locations and islands of Indo-Malaysia.
The lowest variety can be found in Africa.
There may be 40 to 100 different species in 2.5 acres ( 1 hectare) of a tropical rain forest.
Rain forests belong to the tropical wet climate group.
The temperature in a rain forest rarely gets higher than 93 ƒF (34 ƒC) or drops below 68 ƒF (20 ƒC); humidity is between 77 and 88%; rainfall is often more than 100 inches a year.
There is usually a brief season of less rain. In monsoonal areas, there is a real dry season.
The tropical rain forest can be found in three major geographical areas around the world: