While trees in the emergent layer rely on wind to scatter their seeds, many canopy plants, lacking wind, encase their seeds in fruit. Trees have adapted to this damp environment by producing glossy leaves with pointed tips that repel water. The canopy blocks winds, rainfall, and sunlight, creating a humid, still, and dark environment below. The canopy’s dense network of leaves and branches forms a roof over the two remaining layers. Canopy Layer Beneath the emergent layer is the canopy, a deep layer of vegetation roughly 6 meters (20 feet) thick. One of the world’s largest species of bat, the Madagascan flying fox (found on the African island of Madagascar), for instance, is an important pollinator that mainly feeds on juice from fruit, but will chew flowers for their nectar. Bats are the most diverse mammal species in most tropical rainforests, and they regularly fly throughout the emergent, canopy, and understory layers.
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Pygmy gliders are small rodents that get their name from the way flaps of skin between their legs allow them to glide from branch to branch. In rainforests on the island of New Guinea, pygmy gliders populate the emergent layer. Large raptors, such as white-tailed hawks and harpy eagles, are its top predators. The animals living in the emergent layer of the Amazon rainforest include birds, bats, gliders, and butterflies. Animals that can’t fly or glide are usually quite small-they need to be light enough to be supported by a tree’s slender uppermost layers.
Animals often maneuver through the emergent layer’s unstable topmost branches by flying or gliding. Unlike many rainforest species, both the Brazil nut tree and the kapok tree are deciduous-they shed their leaves during the dry season. The Brazil nut tree, a vulnerable species, can live up to 1,000 years in undisturbed rainforest habitats. In the Amazon rainforest, the towering trees of the emergent layer include the Brazil nut tree and the kapok tree. Lightweight seeds are carried away from the parent plant by strong winds. Small, waxy leaves help trees in the emergent layer retain water during long droughts or dry seasons. Foliage is often sparse on tree trunks, but spreads wide as the trees reach the sunny upper layer, where they photosynthesize the sun’s rays.
Here, trees as tall as 60 meters (200 feet) dominate the skyline. Emergent LayerThe top layer of the rainforest is the emergent layer. While each layer is distinct, they exist in an interdependent system: processes and species in one layer influence those in another. Each layer has unique characteristics based on differing levels of water, sunlight, and air circulation. Rainforest Structure Most rainforests are structured in four layers: emergent, canopy, understory, and forest floor. Citizens, governments, intergovernmental organizations, and conservation groups are working together to protect these invaluable but fragile ecosystems. Unsustainable industrial and agricultural development, however, has severely degraded the health of the world’s rainforests. Rainforests help regulate our climate and provide us with everyday products. Rainforests’ rich biodiversity is incredibly important to our well-being and the well-being of our planet. Even the cool evergreen forests of North America’s Pacific Northwest and Northern Europe are a type of rainforest. The tropical islands of Southeast Asia and parts of Australia support dense rainforest habitats. The largest rainforests on Earth surround the Amazon River in South America and the Congo River in Africa. Rainforests thrive on every continent except Antarctica.
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This makes rainforests astoundingly dense with flora and fauna a 10-square-kilometer (4-square-mile) patch can contain as many as 1,500 flowering plants, 750 species of trees, 400 species of birds and 150 species of butterflies. They are incredibly diverse and complex, home to more than half of the world’s plant and animal species-even though they cover just 6% of Earth’s surface. Rain forests are Earth’s oldest living ecosystems, with some surviving in their present form for at least 70 million years. A rainforest is an area of tall, mostly evergreen trees and a high amount of rainfall.
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