Amazon Rainforest Environmental Studies - Research Paper Example

Amazon Rainforest Amazon rainforest is found to be the biggest forest and the biggest space which is covered by tropical animals and plants. Forest territory of Amazon is basically a tropical rainforest which is spread across the northern region of South American continent. The entire rainforest is shared by almost eight nations which are Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Columbia, Peru, Guiana, Venezuela and Suriname (Save the Amazon Rainforest, Amazon Rainforest). The largest section (almost 60%) of the Amazon rainforest can be found in Brazil.

In fact, half of Brazil is covered by this rainforest. The rainforest of Amazon is also famous as Amazonia. It is seen as one of the most important greatest natural resources that are found on planet earth. Experts often call it the “Lungs of this planet” as it consistently produces oxygen by converting carbon dioxide of the environment (Amazon Rainforest, Blue Planet Biomes). It is found that almost 20% the world’s oxygen come from this rainforest. The nickname ‘rainforest’ signifies the humidity that is found in this region.

However, rainfall does not happen all the time. Usually tropical rainforests are situated near the equator, as a result they are found to be very hot. All the heat leads to huge volume of evaporation of water into the air. The trees in the forest retain the water in their roots and branches. The combination of all these actions makes the entire area very much humid. The humidity, rain and heat have made the Amazon rainforest a rich ecosystem (Save the Amazon Rainforest, Amazon Rainforest). The magnitude of both rain and temperature is found to be consistent throughout the year.

The average temperature in this region is 79° F (Amazon Rainforest, Blue Planet Biomes). It is already mentioned that approximately half of Brazil is covered by the Amazonia. A very crucial fact is that the canopy of the Amazon rainforest is less studied as compared to the ocean floor. Many experts believe that it is very much possible that the half of all the species in world can be found in the canopy of this rainforest. What is already found is that more than 500 mammals, 175 types of lizards and almost one of third earth’s birds live in the Amazonia.

It is predicted that nearly 30 million types of insects live in this region (Amazon Rainforest, Blue Planet Biomes). The Amazon rainforest can be seen as the combination of four different layers. Each of these layers consists of unique plants, animals and ecosystems. The first layer is happened to be the tallest among all. In this layer trees having height of 200 feet are found. The leaves are often found to be small. Furthermore, a thick waxy surface is found over the leaves. This layer experiences significant fluctuation of wind, rainfall and temperature (Amazon Rainforest, Blue Planet Biomes).

The next layer i.e. ‘the canopy’ is considered to be a major layer of Amazonia. Most of the trees in this layer have oval and smooth leaves and almost 80% of sunlight gets filtered through them. The canopy acts as a home to hundreds and thousands of species. The next layer gets 3-5% of the sunlight. Plants in this layer find some unique ways of adaptability in this shadowy system. Due to very low movement of air, plants and their leaves greatly depend on the animals and insects for pollinating the flowers (Amazon Rainfores