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**The roles of certain organisms in their ecosystem**
\http://www.rainforestconservation.org/articles/rainforest_primer/toc.html http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_decomposers_are_in_a_tropical_rainforest http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/rainforest.htm http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0023607.html

There are many reasons for the large diversity of the tropical rainforests. These are the main two;
1) The rainforests are said to be the oldest biomes.(Cite this) The organisms contained within the rainforests have had the largest amount of time to diversify, which would explain the large amount of species they contain. 2) The rainforests have an extremely large amount of niches. This makes it more likely for speciation to occur within a species, which would eventually lead to new species forming by divergent evolution.

All the organisms within the rainforest ecosystem have an important role in the food chain. The main decomposers of organic matter that falls to the forest floor are fungi, bacteria, moss, termites and earthworms. When they break down the dead organic material left by plants and animals, they release nutrients that plants benefit from. The main producers in the tropical rainforests are the estimated 200-300 tree species and many species of floor plants such as shrubs and fruit plants. The herbivores include insects, caterpillars, and monkeys. These all feed off of the plants and trees. The carnivores include puma and ocelots, which feed on the herbivores. The carnivores help maintain stable levels of other animals within the ecosystem, as do the herbivores with the plants. Because there are so many tree species, this allows for many niches in the other levels of the rainforest. These include the herbivores and carnivores.