Amazon Rainforest
Overview :-
The world's largest rainforest covering an area of 5.5 million km², the Amazon rainforest, contributes 9% of the world's oxygen, home to species found nowhere else. It also has the river with the most volume in the world and it's also the second-longest river in the world.
Even though it has been existence for over 55 million years, it was first inhabited by humans 11,200 years ago. Even today there are over 60 tribes in the Amazon rainforest who have been voluntarily isolated from the mainstream world.
In the last 40 years(2018), 20% of the Amazon rainforest has been either cut down or burnt due to man-made or natural fires. In 2019 alone, 7200 square miles had burnt due to forest fires and still is in 2020 due to no effective action taken by the Brazilian Government. Norway has given 1 million U.S. Dollars to the Brazilian government to save the amazon rainforest from being endangered.
Amazon rainforest apart of giving us precious Oxygen is also home to the largest variety of animals and plants in the world.
The rainforest on Fire. When the fire takes place, it burns a huge area and so many animals die. Also, their is so much pollution that 20% oxygen becomes carbon -dioxide
Flora :-
The amazon rainforest has five layers as almost all rainforests have. The emergent, the Canopy, the understory, and the forest floor. The Amazon rainforest has a huge live collection of flora species. Botanical experts say that in 2.5 acres of the forest you can find 700 different species of trees and twice that number of plants.
Emergent Layer-One of the most awesome things you will notice is that the forest has a high density of trees and they are very tall. Many trees reach 130 meters high (some species reach 200 feet), and under they form a shadowed place where at times is hard to see the sun. The high canopy of the Amazon rainforest is a very unknown place even for most botanists and until recently very few researches have even explored this hard to reach an area of the forest. The high canopy is also the home of thousands of still undiscovered species of insects and birds. Mostly eagles and bats.
Canopy- The canopy layer consists of the majority of branches and leaves of the trees found in the rainforest, and these branches and leaves form an 'umbrella' for the two layers located underneath, which are the understory layer and forest floor. The fauna here includes primates and birds like the scarlet macaque.
Understory- The understory is the underlying layer of vegetation in a forest or wooded area, especially the trees and shrubs growing between the forest canopy and the forest floor. The canopy of a rainforest is tall and thick and intercepts around 95% of the sunlight. Jaguars sit in the understory and suddenly attack their prey like the tapir but they are also on the forest floor. There are many primates present here.
Forest Floor-The forest floor is the layer that receives very little sunlight because most of the sunlight is blocked by the trees above. It is because of this that there are almost no plants present below and thus it is very easy to travel on the ground because of the absence of these plants. Animals like the tapir are found on the forest floor.
Fauna and Avifauna :-
The fauna of this region includes the Jaguar, sloths, capybaras, tufted capuchin, maned wolf, golden lion tamarin, Marsh deer, giant anteater, and the tapir. The avifauna includes the scarlet macaque, harpy eagle,.There are also many water birds like herons found here. The most number of reptiles in the world are found here. The caiman is included in this category.
The amazon river dolphin is also popular here.