Layers of the Rainforests Key Vocabulary

Emergent Layer This layer receives the most sunlight and

plenty of rain. It is very windy here and trees
Rainforests ecosystem
habitat
all of the living and non-living things in an area
the place where a living thing makes its home
can rise to 70m in height. There are plenty of
camouflage animals hide themselves by blending into its
animals such as birds and monkeys in this
Rainforests are a kind of forest habitat that can be found surroundings
layer (e.g. scarlet macaws, harpy eagles,
weather and temperature usually found in a particular
canary-winged parakeets, morpho butterflies in warm places. They are full of tall trees and leafy plants. climate area
and capuchin/squirrel monkeys). It is called a 'rainforest' because it also gets a lot of rain carbon gas released when fuel is burned and when animals and
This layer still gets plenty of sunlight and rain
Upper Canopy every year, helping all the plants grow. dioxide humans breathe / plants use up carbon dioxide
but it is less windy. Wide leaves and thicker
oxygen gas released by plants / breathed in by animals and
branches create a roof which stops light humans
getting to lower layers. It is home to a range wind that changes direction with the seasons
monsoon
of wildlife (e.g. toucans, sloths, howler
temperate a climate with warm summers and cool summers
monkeys, iguanas and tree snakes).
humid having a high level of moisture in the air
Understory / Lower Canopy This layer only gets a small amount of light
equatorial warm rainforests growing near the equator
and is a damp and warm environment filled
tropical tropics are warm all year around and rainforests can
with smaller shrubs and trees which provide
grow
shelter and food for other animals (e.g. tree
indigenous a living person or thing that belongs naturally to an area
frogs, jaguars and the praying mantis).
This layer is dark, damp and very warm with extinct an animal or plant species that has died out completely
Forest Floor
virtually no sunlight reaching the floor. vegetation the plant life growing in a certain area
Leaves fall to the floor and start to rot. It is
liana rope-like plants that grow up trees
filled with rodents, insects and insect-eating
animals (e.g. click beetles, worms, giant
centipedes, giant anteaters and leaf-cutter The Loss of the Rainforests
ants). Half the world’s rainforests have been destroyed in a century and at

Deforestation this rate you might even see them vanish altogether in your lifetime!
More than 20 percent of the world oxygen is produced in the Amazon
Logging Trees are cut down to sell and make Rainforest. Deforestation is in fact considered the second major cause
furniture with. They are also turned into Indigenous People of climate change, responsible for up to 25% of global carbon dioxide
charcoal. Huge areas of forest are cut The way of life for indigenous people in emissions.

down in one go. Roads are created rainforests has gone on uninterrupted for
centuries, but it is now under threat because of FACT BOX
which causes even more damage.
the invasion of the rainforest by outsiders -
Cattle Ranching Forests are being burned down to make
logging companies, mining operations and
Every year about 18million hectares of forest – an
way for cattle farming, supplying beef area the size of England and Wales – is cleared!
ranchers looking to make a profit.
to the rest of the world. Soil soon
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/
becomes dry and cattle farmers have to Rain_forest_location_map.png
move on leaving a trail of destruction Where in the World?
behind. Rainforest habitats are forests
Mining and Oil The demand for minerals and metals located around the tropics,
such as oil, aluminium, copper, gold which is a zone around the
Companies and diamonds mean that rainforests are equator, and are mainly found
destroyed to access the ground below. in Africa, Asia, Australia,
Tropic of
Chemicals used can often end up in Central America and South
Central American Cancer
rivers, polluting water supplies. America. The largest rainforest
South East
Large dams are used to help with the habitat in the world is the
Dams Equator Asian
Amazon rainforest in South
creation of electricity. This is seen as
America. Temperate
‘clean’ energy but has resulted in the Congo
rainforests are not as warm so
flooding of large areas of rainforest. Tropic of River Basin
there aren’t as many plants.
Capricorn
These are located along the
Madagascar northwest coast of North
America, and in parts of Chile,
Amazon Australasian New Zealand and Australia.