About this site
Providing tropical forest news, statistics, photos, and information, rainforests.mongabay.com is the world's most popular rainforest site. [more]
Fungi
Fungi (Mycota Kingdom) lack chlorophyll and do not photosynthesize like plants to make food. Instead fungi are
saprophytes, or organisms that feed of dead material. They feed by penetrating plant and animal tisue and secreting
substances that break down structural material into simple sugars.
Despite their essential ecological role in everything from agriculture to forest function, there remains much to
be learned about fungi.
"Rainforest" is used interchangeably with "rain forest" on this site. Same for "rainforests" and "rain forests". "Jungle" is generally not used.
Recent news
Amazon deforestation rate falls to lowest on record (8/10/2007) Deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon for the previous year were the lowest on record, according to preliminary figures released by INPE, Brazil's National Institute of Space Research.
Lowland rainforest less diverse than previously thought (8/9/2007) While rainforests are the world's libraries of biodiversity, species richness may be more evenly distributed in some forests than in others, reports an extensive new study by an international team of entomologists and botanists. The work, published in the current issue of the journal Nature, has important implications for forest management and conservation strategies.
Experts: parks effectively protect rainforest in Peru (8/9/2007) High-resolution satellite monitoring of the Amazon rainforest in Peru shows that land-use and conservation policies have had a measurable impact on deforestation rates. The research is published in the August 9, 2007, on-line edition of Science Express.
