In 1980, the estimated amount of rain forests in the world was 40,000 square miles. This number decreases each
year by roughly 1,000 square miles due to construction and the resources being used for profit. It is too bad, because
the rain forest is one of the most beautiful places on earth. It is the most diverse, containing the most species of
living things, much more than anywhere else, and most have yet to be identified. All rain forests are located on
earth’s “green belt”, that is, the area roughly around the equator that covers all the area from Mexico and the
northern area of South America, to Africa, to India, stretching out to Indonesia, the northern tip of Australia and all
the way to New Guinea. This area is heavily covered with flora and fauna,
and it abounds with life. In a rain forest, it is very wet and it rains everyday or every other day very heavily. There is
a high and steady level of heat and moisture. There are some general layers to the rain forest. It starts
135 feet up in the air, with the lofty crowns of the tallest trees in the jungle. They take the most light, heat, rain and
the most punishment from the winds. Woodpeckers hunt insects in this layer, and also the black and white
Colobus monkey can be found here, ready to launch into the air, using his specially developed tail as a rudder to
guide his flight. Beneath this is the second layer of trees, whose crowns form a forest canopy. Rain filters
through this canopy, and the top sides of the crowns hold a large amount of ferns and other small plants whose roots
never touch soil. They live off the water and nutrients held in the small pockets of the leaves and branches. Tree
frogs and chimpanzees live here, burrowing holes to live in the vast vegetation. The third layer is called the
“understory”. This grows beneath the canopy. The gorilla makes this his regular hangout, also pythons lie here
waiting for prey. The dim forest floor teems with life. Termites and ants feed on all the decomposing matter on the
ground, and elephants make their way down a path of moss. Butterflies move silently by, and the air is still and very
humid. These are the layers that make up the rain forest’s complex
ecology. In the rest of the essay I will describe some of the life forms found in the rain forest, and ways they affect
the environment. In the rain forest, plants develop poisonous alkaloids to protect against insects, and insects develop
complex digestive chemistry to overcome these poisons. Some of these plant alkaloids give native Indians great
poisons for darts, and to cancer researchers hope for a new medicine. The rain forest root systems are so efficient
that almost all of the nutrients in decaying plants are recycled into new ones. Most roots are found within three
inches of the surface in heavy clay or at the surface in sandy soils. Tiny rootlets grow up and attach themselves to
leaves. When the leaf decays, minuscule fungi on the rootlets take over and send threadlike projections into the leaf
which absorbs all of the leaf’s nutrient material. The phosphorous that the fungi produces is taken by the root, and in
turn gives the fungus sugars from the tree. Al!
so, termites and ants break down the forest litter.
ALAM
In a small lake in the middle of the rain forest, a small lizard skims across the water away from dangerous prey and
attacks its own victim by surprise, yet another marvel of the tropical rain forest. Mutualism occurs in the jungle with
a specialized ant and a swollen-thorn acacia. The acacia provides budlike leaflet tips which are called Beltian bodies,
which the ants give to their young for food. The insects hollow out the tree’s thorns when soft and green and raise
their young inside. The acacia doesn’t have chemical defenses to repel dangerous and damaging insects and demands
pure sunlight for proper growth. The ants patrol the tree day and night. If any insect lands on the tree, they bite it
with a poisonous sting. They also attack plants that grow onto the tree, such as a vine. In this case, they would attack
the vine at it’s base and pull it off the tree. There are also small leaf-cutting ants in the jungle that cut a portion of a
leaf, bring it to their home,!
and chew it to a pulp and inject a body fluid to create a wet mulch. On this mulch grows the only food of this
particular ant — a fungus that has only one species. The mysterious part about this is that any spores that could
develop on the mulch and contaminate it don’t develop. Paper wasps in the rain forest have to bail out their home
after a heavy shower. They lap up a mouthful of water from the colony, and then spit it out onto the forest floor.
They also coat the small stalk that attaches the nest to the branch of a tree with a sticky black secretion that repels
some ants. But there are still some predators, such as jungle katydids which eat the leaves, and some species of ants
that are not repelled by the black secretion. In one rain forest, there is a kind of toad that is voiceless. So for the male
to attract a mate, nature gave it a very noticeable characteristic — a fluorescent orange color, which is unmistakable.
The females are blackish green with scarle!
t spots on them.
In April and May, mating takes place. Where pools are formed on the forest floor by water
trickling down trees, females lay around 200 eggs. After the males fertilize them, the embryos live in their aquatic
world for about two weeks, then after that they hatch and mature. This species was discovered in 1964 and it helped
win government protection for Monteverde, which is the place where these frogs can be found. Biologist Jay M.
Savage, amazed by the frogs, once wrote “I must confess. . .my. . .disbelief and suspicion that someone had dipped
the examples in enamel paint.” There are other species of frogs, such as the green leaf
frog, whose green body and glowing red eyes is an incredible sight. They extrude and fertilize their eggs on a leaf
over water. Young that are ready to leave their embryo drop into the water below. Also the poison-arrow frog is an
interesting variety. The males battle for dominance and mates. Two can struggle for hours until one give up and
croaks “uncle”. Their color warns predators of their composition which could prove toxic for snakes and other such
beasts. The Dendrobates Granuliferus frog doesn’t have young that develop in water. Instead, the tadpoles cling to
the mother’s wet back. She transports them this way from place to place, usually depositing them in a cup of
rainwater in a high branch safe from predators. She immerses herself in the water at first until the young let go of her
body and swim into the water.
ALAM
A rare bird found only in rain forests, the quetzal, is a beautiful sight. They have long colorful tails which have long
been worn by royalty of the Colombian Indians, who called the birds sacred. It is beautiful animals like these that
might start spur nations into preserving more of their rain forests, in hopes of keeping one of the most complex and
interesting ecologies on earth.
