Category Plants & Animals

LIVING WITH EACH OTHER

A living thing cannot live alone. It depends on the other living things to supply the materials it needs to survive. We have seen how animals rely on plants for their food. Animals that only eat plants are called ‘herbivores’. Animals that eat other animals are called ‘carnivores’. A series of living things that feed on each other make up a “food chain”. If one of the members of the chain is removed all the others may be affected.

Often, several food chains interlink as many animals feed on a variety of plants or animals. The chains together make a ‘food web’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Seashore plants and animals hold on tight

The waves that crash on to a seashore are very strong. Seashore plants and animals must hold on tight to keep themselves safe. If they let go, they could be washed away or smashed on the rocks.

 

 

These limpets are holding on to a rock.

Seashore animals have different ways of holding on. Limpets use their strong foot to grip tightly on to rocks and stop them from being washed away. Some animals, like sea urchins, cling on to rocks with lots of tiny feet that look like tubes. Mussel shellfish anchor themselves down to rocks with tough threads.

 

 

 

 

This seaweed grips on tightly to the rocks.

Seaweeds anchor themselves on to rocks to stop them from being washed away by strong waves. Large seaweeds grip on to rocks with strong, finger-like rootlets called holdfasts. During storms, seaweed is ripped off rocks.

 

 

 

 

 

Sea otters wrap themselves in seaweed.

When sea otters sleep, they wrap themselves in giant kelp seaweed. They grab a floating end of kelp and spin around in the water. The kelp wraps around the otter and anchors it down. It stops the sea from carrying the sea otter away in its sleep.

 

Seashore plants

 

 

Many plants live on the seashore. Seaweeds are seashore plants that can live in salty seawater. Some seashore plants can only live on the land. They grow high up the shore, out of the reach of the waves.

 

 

 

 

 

This seaweed floats in the water.

Bladder wrack seaweed has pockets of air and jelly to help it float in the water. Its tough leathery leaves are covered in a slippery, gummy substance to protect it from drying out at low tide. Bladder wrack can survive out of water while the tide is out.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Kelp seaweed grows very fast.

Californian kelp seaweed is the fastest growing plant in the world. It can grow up to one metre in a day and can reach lengths of 100 metres. Kelp grows in huge underwater forests, which are home to many fish and other animals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

These tough grasses grow on sand dunes.

Marram grass is a tough plant that grows on sand dunes at the seashore. It has thin, curled leaves to protect it from drying out in the wind and the Sun. Marram grass has long roots to reach down to water. The roots stop the plant blowing away.

 

Rescuing the rainforests

Rainforests are important to all of us, so we must save them. Many groups of people raise money to protect and restore rainforests. The money might be spent replanting trees or teaching farmers how to look after the forest.

Growing crops in small patches helps to protect the soil.

If local farmers learn to grow their crops in a similar way to the forest people, they can stop the thin soil wearing out. Growing patchworks of different plants and trees, instead of just one type, restores nutrients to the soil. Using the land sustainably means that farmers will not need to move on and cut down more rainforest.

 

 

 

People can visit this protected rainforest.

Some rainforests have been turned into National Parks or reserves where it is against the law to cut down the trees. This helps to keep the animals, plants and people that live there safe. Many tourists visit the parks to see the rainforest wildlife.

 

 

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Rain forests Homes under threat

 

 

People who live in rainforests know how to find everything they need. The forest gives them food, shelter, clothes and medicine. In return, they treat the forest with great respect. They take only what they need, without causing any damage.

 

 

 

 

This man is weaving a roof using palm leaves.

Rainforests throughout the world have been home to various tribes of people for thousands of years. They build their homes using rainforest plants and they hunt for meat, gather fruit and nuts and grow useful plants in their gardens. They use the rainforest in a sustainable way that does not destroy it.

 

 

 

 

Rainforest is cleared to make cattle farms.

Many people have moved into rainforests, but they use the forest in ways that destroy it. Huge areas of rainforest have been cut down to make way for farmland. But because the nutrients in the thin soil soon wear out, farmers move on to destroy new parts of the forest, leaving behind a bare, infertile piece of land.

 

 

 

 

This hillside was once covered in trees and packed with wildlife.

When a rainforest is nut down, plants, animals and rainforest people lose their homes. Many species may die out and become extinct. Without the cover of the trees, the thin soil dries up and is washed away by the rain. The land is left like a desert and it is very difficult for rainforest to ever grow there again.

 

Rainforests – The Earth’s lungs

Rainforests only cover a small part of the Earth’s surface but they are sometimes called the lungs of the world. They help control the world’s weather and affect the air we breathe.

Rainforests help to recycle gases in the air.

Trees and other plants breathe in the opposite way to humans and animals. Trees breathe in carbon dioxide (which we breathe out) and breathe out oxygen (which we breathe in). This helps to balance gases in the air and ensures there is plenty of oxygen for us to breathe.

 

 

 

Rainforests soak up the heat from the Sun.

Dark green rainforests absorb the heat and strong sunlight that shines in the tropics. When rainforests are cut down and lighter coloured vegetation grows instead, it creates a mirror effect. Sunlight and heat are reflected back up into the atmosphere causing it to warm up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cutting down rainforests is helping to make the Earth warmer.

When rainforests are destroyed, there are fewer trees to remove carbon dioxide from the air, so it starts to build up. Too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere traps heat from the Sun like the glass in a greenhouse. This is called the greenhouse effect and it is making the Earth warmer.