Rainforest Biodiversity
Understand that rainforests are biodiversity hotspots — covering just 6% of Earth's land surface but containing over 50% of all known plant and animal species — and that this extraordinary richness makes them irreplaceable for global biodiversity and a priority for conservation
What a learner can do afterwards
- State that rainforests cover about 6% of Earth's land but hold over 50% of all species
- Explain why this concentration of species makes rainforests a conservation priority
- Give specific examples of rainforest biodiversity, such as one hectare containing more tree species than all of northern Europe
1 · Read
You already know how to sort rainforest animals into groups like mammals and birds. Here is why that skill matters: rainforests cover only about 6 out of every 100 parts of land on Earth, but they hold more than half of all the kinds of plants and animals scientists have found. A short walk there can show you more new life than a walk almost anywhere else.
Picture a patch of rainforest about the size of one soccer field, called a hectare. Scientists have counted more different kinds of trees growing in that one hectare than exist in all of northern Europe put together. Take a short walk through a rainforest and you could pass hundreds of tree types you would never see anywhere else.
This is why rainforests matter so much for protecting nature. So many species live only in rainforests that losing this habitat would mean losing plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth.
Rainforests cover just 6% of Earth's land but hold over half of all its species, which is why protecting them is such a high priority.
2 · Watch
Take it off screen
Where it sits
This opens up
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.