Chapter 2: Rainforest Ecosystem

Rainforest's are very structured, they have many layers. These include the EMERGENTS, the CANOPY, the UNDERSTORY and the FOREST FLOOR. This is very important to the rainforest as a whole. Eg. The upper layers stop the forest floor from being drowned. The climate graph below the nutrient cycle graph shows how much rainfall and the temperature of a rainforest's each year. The reasons for them being so high is that most of the rainforest's are near the sea, meaning more and more water is joining the cloud's as rain falls. Also the heat is caused by the equator and the suns heat. This is different from the UK because we have hardly any rainfall and the temperature is not as high. The nutrient graph at the top shows that a plant/tree absorbs sunlight and carbon dioxide from the air, and water and nutrients from the soil. A dead leaf/animal/insect will be eaten and recycled before going into the soil as nutrients. It is important to the rainforest because the decomposing matter turns into nutrients. Deforestation can change this by not so many dead leaves falling leaving less nutrients for the surrounding life.