Large leafed shrubs and saplings new trees grow in the patches of sunlight.
Plants that live on the forest floor.
The forest floor is very dark in a rainforest and hence it is not the home to many plants.
This fertile ground cover is important for nourishing the plants that are capable of surviving in the dark under layer of a forest.
There is too little sunlight here for plants to grow.
These darkness loving plants live inside of dead and decomposing trees branches and other rotting plant material.
The national aquarium in baltimore describes how these insects are some of the only animals that live on the rainforest floor along with ants and anteaters.
The forest floor is the lowest layer where it is dark hot and damp.
The forest floor also called detritus duff and the o horizon is one of the most distinctive features of a forest ecosystem it mainly consists of shed vegetative parts such as leaves branches bark and stems existing in various stages of decomposition above the soil surface.
The lack of light water and nutrients all add up to why plants struggle growing on the forest floor and so only a few are adapted to live there.
As animals decompose along the forest floor nutrients seep into the soil and help feed plants that would otherwise be malnourished.
Although principally composed of non living organic material the forest floor also teems with a wide variety of.
This is a forest habitat for birds lizards snakes and large predatory cats.
The understory layer could be described as the middle part of the flora system.
They feed on insects and tend to be elusive creatures.
Dead leaves fallen from the plants in the layers above cover the ground.
Only two per cent of sunlight gets through the thick canopy trees and understorey plants to reach the forest floor.
The forest floor is covered in a layer of decomposition known as detritus.
Another factor is animal predators it s a lot easier for animals to eat the leaves on the floor than the leaves up in the trees.
The majority of plants that grow on the forest floor are used by insects such as the madagascar hissing cockroach and the giant african millipede as food.
They include many types of mushrooms and other fungi.
There are many forest birds that live on the forest floor of the rainforest.
The forest floor is generally dark and damp and is home to many plants insects amphibians spiders small mammals and lizards.
