Veronika Wild

The Golden Lion Tamarin - Leontopicuthus rosalia is one of the Atlantic Forest's many unique and highly endangered inhabitants  -Thank you to Guppiecat for this photo The Atlantic Forest  I must confess I hadn't even heard of the Atlantic Forest  before I started writing about rainforests. This could be because it had almost ceased to exist. After decades of logging, land clearing for agriculture and urban expansion, there was only around 12% of it left, with the remainder being highly fragmented. This is a shame because after the Amazon it is the world's second richest biodiversity hotspot. It runs along the east coast of South America from Brazil to Paraguay and Argentina and covers approximately 15 different eco -regions including tropical rainforests. Having evolved separately and earlier than the Amazon, it contains thousands of unique species - one in fourteen plants and one in twenty of our known animals, including the golden lion tamarin and the brown throate...

  -Thank you to Cluan S.for this lovely graphic Tropical Rainforests flourish around the Equator because they like high, even temperatures and abundant rainfall. When the area is large enough, some such as the Amazon, generate rainfall themselves. Large leaves on tall trees intercept the rain and allow it to percolate gently into the earth.  As the sun warms up each day, they slowly release this moisture back into the atmosphere through transpiration. The trees with their layered understoreys act like multistorey apartments for a whole range of species, some ground dwelling, some preferring the intermediate levels and others the canopy. Despite covering only 2% of the earth's surface, tropical rainforests contain around   50 - 80% of its biodiversity.   They also do a great deal for humans.  Rainforests are considered the lungs of the earth, with the Amazon alone producing around 20% of the world’s oxygen. They influence weather and climate – they buffer...