Title: Stratification of rain forest. Cartoon by M. Sashital.

Description: Stratification of rain forest into ground, shrub, understory, canopy, and emergent layers (also called strata). These layers are usually not apparent because all of the tree layers pass through other layers; for example, emergent trees pass through the strata of all of the other layers thereby making it difficult to distinguish the layers. The trees of a lowland rainforest create many different microhabitats which increases biological diversity.