Tropical Rain Forests are a beautiful part of the planet we live on.  They hold what seems like and infinite amount of species and organisms to form the environment they live in. Tropical rain forests only take up two percent of earths above sea level property but also are also home to over sixty-five percent of all terrestrial species. Imagine fitting sixty-five percent of something into two percent of another something; rain forests are the most populated land areas on earth. Because all rain forests are near the equator, they are always hot in the day and cold at night. The humidity is always very high because of the amount of annual rainfall that occurs. One third of the world’s rain forests are located in Brazil, South America. The other two-thirds are in Central America, Africa, Madagascar, Australia, Southeast Asia, and the Philippines.  The average rainfall ranges between two hundred to two hundred and twenty-five centimeters a year. When mixed with the temperatures between seventy and ninety degrees, that calls for a rise in humidity. This also leaves the soil really thick and short of nutrients. In tropical rain forests, there are essentially 5 main layers of vegetation; the tall, fifty to sixty meter trees that scatter all around, the twenty-five to thirty-five meter trees that form the “canopy” layer, the lower canopy layer that is formed by trees between fifteen and twenty-four meters, young trees and bushes and shrubs, and then small plants including ferns, vines, and lianas. Because of all of the vegetation and trees, forty percent of the earth’s oxygen is produced in the tropics.

Yadav, A. (Designer). (2013, Sept 30). Tropical Rain Forest Biome [Web Graphic]. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/mehashok/tropical-rain-forest-biome-ashok-yadav?from_search=10

~AH