(http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/rainforest.htm)

Tropical rainforests are forests with a warm and moist climate.  These ecosystems occur around the equator in Africa, Asia, Central America, Australia, and South America.  All of the different rainforests are special because of the high levels of diversity.  Each rainforest has a high level of endemic species that raises the biodiversity in the area.  It rains almost every day with some seasons having more rain than others.  On average, it rains between 200-450 cm annually and has an average temperature of 25.4C (Malhi and Wright).  There are three distinct levels in a rainforest.  The top, the emergent layer, consists of the crowns of the trees and i receives the most sunlight.  The middle layer, the canopy, is the layer of leaves that contains the most of the rainforest’s diversity.  The bottom layer is the understory that consists of smaller plants.  The soil of the rainforest is poor in nutrients because of the constant rainfall.  Living among the trees is a wide variety of plants, many epiphytes that live on the trees, and animals, like sloths and amphibians, that have adapted to the wet and warm climate.  Humans use these forests for timber, space for human population growth, and for industrial expansion. (Berg. et al)