Notes

The forest floor is the darkest of all rainforest layers, making it extremely difficult for plants to grow. Leaves that fall to the forest floor decay quickly.

Decomposers, such as termites, slugs, scorpions, worms, and fungi, thrive on the forest floor. Organic matter falls from trees and plants, and these organisms break down the decaying material into nutrients. The shallow roots of rainforest trees absorb these nutrients, and dozens of predators consume the decomposers!

Animals such as wild pigs, armadillos, and anteaters forage in the decomposing brush for these tasty insects, roots and tubers of the South American rainforest. Even larger predators, including leopards, skulk in the darkness to surprise their prey. Smaller rodents, such as rats and lowland pacas (a type of striped rodent indigenous to Central and South America), hide from predators beneath the shallow roots of trees that dominate the canopy and emergent layer.

Rivers that run through some tropical rainforests create unusual freshwater habitats on the forest floor. The Amazon River, for instance, is home to the boto, or pink river dolphin, one of the few freshwater dolphin species in the world. The Amazon is also home to black caimans, large reptiles related to alligators, while the Congo River is home to the caimans’ crocodilian cousin, the Nile crocodile.