Animals in Amozon

Rainforests

          At least 50% of rainforests are made up of animals. They are being cut down at the rate of one football field per second, so a lot of animals will be left without a home since they depend on the plants. Rainforests are about 2% of the earth, and 7% of just the land. The tallest layer in the rainforest could be 150 feet high. There are at least 1,400 different tropical plants that have a cure for cancer. There are at least 300 trees. The roots of the tallest trees are shallow and they fan out. In four square miles, there are about 1,800 flowering plants, 750 trees, 125 mammals, and 150 butterfly species. In one square mile, there might be about one or two of the same types of trees. There are four layers in rainforests: the canopy, the understory, the underbrush, and the ground. The canopy can be from 60 to 150 feet tall, with branches that fan out like an umbrella that is really close together. Because of this, it blocks the sunlight from the lower plants on the ground level, but also blocks it from rain falling directly on them, and instead, running down the trunks and dripping off the leaves. The vines (lianas) are as thick as a person and climb up the trees for sunlight. On the under story, the vines are smaller trees ferns and palms that have all adapted to poor soil and few nutrients, so they easily adapt indoors, including anthuriemicaladium, philodendron, and garden walls. In the underbrush, there are small trees under the bigger trees. On the ground, there are few plants, and is covered with wet leaves, leaf litter, mosses, herbs, fungi and lots of decay that gives nutrients back to the soil.
          In temperate rainforests, there are the following vegetation: bananas, avocados, pineapples, peppers, peanuts, oranges, papayas, lemons, cinnamon, spices, coconut, and sugar. Curare is used as an anesthetic and to relax people for surgery. Quinine from a cinchona tree is used to treat malaria. Rosy Periwinkle has a drug in it that is anti-lukemia and gives patients 99% chance to get the drug in vemision. Epiphytes grow canopy trees, as well as moss, orchids, and lichens.

Amazon Rainforests

          In the Amazon rainforests 1,600 species of birds and about 1,000,000,000 species of insects. There are five times more bird species in the Amazon. In the Amazon, there is coffee, cashews, cocoa beans, and chicle. The oil of the cocoa is used in suntan lotions, cosmetics, and soap. They also grow rubber trees that produce latex for making tires. Kapok trees have silky waterproof fibers used for life preservers, pillows, upholstery, and installation. Since 1959 there are now 37,673,665 hectacres of national forests and parks in Brazil. If 1 Hectacre. =. 2.471 Acres, that means that Brazil has over 93 million acres of protected forests and parks!

Information about the Amazon Rainforest, the Amazon River, and the Amazon Basin.

 

 

The Amazon basin is made up of several different geological areas.  There are two upland areas know as shields which are as high as 1000 meters, and these shields are separated by the main river to the east.  The shields which are ancient uplands are the Brazilian shield and the Guiana Shield.  The rest of the region is a sedimentary basin, that is lower than 1000 meters in elevation, and accounts for 35% of the basins drainage.  In some areas the sediment has built up to depths of over 5000 meters.  Additionally the Andes mountains start form the western border of the rainforest, and account for about 15% of the Amazon basin.  The Brazilian and Guiana Shields were actually higher than the Andes mountains at one time, and therefore they supplied most of the sediment to the eastern and central Amazon Basin.  The Andes mountains began to rise about 15 million years ago, when the Nazca and South American plates clashed. 
The heavy rainfall on the eastern slopes of the Andes for the last 10 million years have caused a large amount of erosion, and huge quantities of sediment have flowed eastward.  Seasonal flooding of the Andean Alluvial Extension zone have caused the area to become deeply deposited with sediment.  The headwaters may not follow the same path every year as the river can meander and create new paths cutting through the sedimented soil.
Sedimented soil is constantly being moved across the floodplains and the river through this annual cycle. Over 30% of the Amazon river flows through floodplains, therefore a large amount of the Andean sediment is deposited there.
The Andes mountains are still rising, and the earth is still unstable at the headwaters of the Amazon.  Active volcanoes such as Cotopaxi, Tungurahua, Reventador, Antisana, and Sangay, are all in the Amazon headwater region.  The volcanic materials from the volcanoes can darken the Amazon Rivers tributary rivers such as the Napo River.  Over the last 2 million years, the fluctuations in the earths temperatures have caused the sea levels to rise and since as the polar ice caps melted.  Some scientists believe that the Amazon lowlands were completely submerged when the sea levels were higher than they are today.  The floodplains have been formed over the past 7000 years, an most of them have been filled with sediment from the Andes mountains.  Tributary rivers such as the Negro and the Tapajos are relatively deeper and wider than other tributaries.  They are known as mouth lakes, and it is believed they were formed when the sea level was lower and the currents could flow faster, and dug deep into the land.  These tributaries have not had sufficient time to fill with sediment, and therefore are deeper and wider. 
The basin contains the Amazon rainforest which is more than four times larger than the second largest tropical forest the Congo Basin.  Almost one-sixth of the worlds broadleaf forests is found in the Amazon.  South America has other rainforests besides the Amazon rainforest such as the Orinoco basin, the Atlantic coast of Brazil, and along the Pacific coast of Ecuador and Columbia.  However over 85 percent of the South American rainforests are in the Amazon Basin

 

About the Plants & Animals of the Amazon 

 Rainforest

 

The largest of the Earth's tropical rainforests, the Amazon may be home to as many as half of the Earth's species, millions of them yet undiscovered. Most of the Amazon rainforest's inhabitants are insects, but more than 500 mammal, 175 lizard and 300 additional reptile species are known to live here, along with more than 33 percent of the world's bird species.
Both the plants and animals of the Amazon rainforest are perfectly adapted to their environment

Bromeliads plants

Bromeliads are related to the pineapple family. Their thick, waxy leaves form a bowl shape in the centre for catching rainwater. Some bromeliads can hold several gallons of water and are miniature ecosystems in themselves providing homes for several creatures including frogs and their tadpoles, salamanders, snails, beetles and mosquito larvae. Those that die decompose and furnish the plant with nutrients. One bromeliad was found to contain several small beetles, crane flies, earwigs, a frog, a cockroach, spiders, fly larvae, a millipede, a scorpion, woodlice and an earthworm.

 

Buttress Roots Buttress Roots Most rainforest soil is very poor with all the nutrients available largely remaining at surface level. Because of this rainforest trees have very shallow roots. Some very tall trees have developed ways of obtaining much needed additional support by forming buttressed roots, which grow out from the base of the trunk sometimes as high as 15 ft above the ground. These extended roots also increase the area over which nutrients can be absorbed from the soil.                    Carniverous Plants Some plants are adapted to obtain nutrients from animal matter. The best known of these is probably the Venus fly trap, but more impressive is the pitcher plant Nepenthes rafflesiana, found in southeast Asia. This plant grows to 30 feet tall and may have pitchers 12 inches in length, usually crammed full of digested insects. Pitcher plants also eat small mammals and reptiles that attempt to steal the insects from the pitcher Epiphytes, or air plants, grow everywhere but can be found mainly on the branches, trunks, and even the leaves of trees. The name 'epiphyte' comes from the Greek word 'epi' meaning 'upon' and 'phyton' meaning 'plant'. Different types of epiphytes may grow on the same tree, including orchids, cacti, bromeliads, aroids, lichens, mosses and ferns. They begin their life in the canopy from seeds or spores transported there by birds or wind .

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