Biomes are very large ecological areas on the earth’s surface, with plants and animals adapting to their environment. They play a crucial role in sustaining life on earth. Biomes are often determined by abiotic factors such as climate, relief, geology, soils, and vegetation. A biome is not an ecosystem. There are five major categories of biomes on earth, which include: desert, forest, aquatic, grassland, and tundra biomes. There are also sub-biomes, under which are more well defined ecosystems. Tundra, taiga, temperate rain forest, tropical forest, desert, savanna, chaparral, freshwater, and marine / salt water are the primary focus. Tundra is the coldest of all the biomes. According to Pullen (2004), “Tundra comes from the Finnish word tunturia,
What is a biome? Biomes are major life zones characterized by vegetation type or by the physical environment. Climate plays a role in determining the nature and location of Earth’s biomes. Texas has 10 different ecosystems with lots of diversity. Minnesota has 4 different ecosystems which are also quite diverse. Regardless of the size of the biomes or the number of biomes in each state, they are all important not just to the locate environment but on a global level because of the life they support. We are going to take a look at the different biomes, comparing climate and rainfall, as well as vegetation fauna.
The Taiga is a biome that originates from Northern Russia that means or describes a cool large land with many conifers. Upper North America, Northern Europe and Northern Asia all are mostly Taiga. It is the largest biome and contains mostly conifers but does not have that many animals. The climate is mostly very cold and snowy in the winter and warm in the summer while fall and spring are just transition seasons.
The Arctic Tundra is the biome where the Polar bear, Ursus maritimus, or the sea bear live. The climate over there is in the Arctic and is Earth's coldest, where it is treeless and covered with piles of snow and ice for the whole year until summer when it brings wildflowers. On the top of the mountain it is colder, windy, and rainfall is scant.
The Taiga Biome is a large, naturally occurring community of flora and fauna occupying a major part of both Siberia and North America. It is usually found at high elevations at more temperate latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. It is the largest terrestrial biome on earth, covering around 50 million acres of land (NP, UC Santa Barbara). It is known for its subarctic climate that ranges between -51 to -1 °C in the winter and -21 to 7 °C in the summer. The two main season found in the taiga are summer and winter as autumn and spring are usually very short and barely noticeable. Winter makes up around six months of the year, with only around 50-100 frost-free days during the summer. Summer is also the season during which the taiga receives the most precipitation in form of rain. The remainder is made up of snow and dew, which adds up to around 30-85cm of precipitation yearly (NP, S.L. Woodward).
There’s wet tundra, alpine tundra, glaciers and iceland, coastal western hemlock/ Sitka spruce forest, and post-glacial meadows and thickets. As for marine ecosystems, continental shelf, wave-beaten coasts, and fjord estuaries have been
The tundra artic plains completely cover most of the earth’s lands north of the coniferous forest belt. The tundra’s ecosystem is very sensitive. It doesn’t have the ability to restore itself. Controlled by sedge, heath, willow, moss, and lichen. Plains that are pretty much alike, called alpine tundra, occur above the timberline in the high mountains of the world.
Temperate grassland biomes can be found in North America, Africa, the pampas of South America and many parts of Eurasia. Grass is the main plant in Temperate Grassland biomes, trees and shrubs are rare to see in this type of biome. Temperate grasslands also have an extremely high abundance of wildlife. The wildlife living in this biome includes bison and pronghorn sheep, but mainly the animals most affected were the cattle and horses that lived on the surrounding farms.
The taiga biome is almost extinct from humans mining and logging. There is a belief that there was glaciers in the taiga biome at one point centuries ago. Soil in the taiga is poor in nutrients. It lacks the nutrients that some plants need to grow. The soil is thin due to the cold weather of this biome. Diversity of soil is so high it could be compared to the rain forest.It is the coldest and driest biome of the temperate and tropical rain forest. The large areas of Siberia taiga has been used for lumber since fall of the Soviet
are mainly based in plains and lowlands of some kind. The Low Arctic Tundra is
The Relationship Between the Earth's Biota and Physical Environment in John Lovelock's book The Ages of Gaia
The major biomes are the tundra, taiga, tropical rain forest, temperate forests, desert, grassland, savanna, chaparral, and marine. Each biome has it’s own characteristics, such as the tundra. The tundra is a biome that is located in the Northern Hemisphere of the world. It circles the North Pole and reaches down to the Taiga. The tundra has a very cold and harsh climate, especially in the winters.
Tundra is the coldest of all the biomes. Tundra comes from the Finnish word tunturia, meaning treeless plain. It is noted for its frost-molded landscapes, extremely low temperatures, little precipitation, poor nutrients, and short growing seasons. Dead organic material functions as a nutrient pool. The two major nutrients are nitrogen and phosphorus. Nitrogen is created by biological fixation, and phosphorus is created by precipitation. Tundra is separated into two types: arctic tundra and alpine tundra.
The biosphere is a closed self-regulating system that integrates living organisms with nonliving components of a planet (Lenkeit). The biosphere is part of the outer shell of a planet and includes the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere (answers.com).
Biodiversity refers to wide diversity found in the living components of the earth which refers to the numerous varieties of flora and fauna including those of microorganisms too. The interaction of biotic and abiotic components of the ecosystem is very important aspect of life on earth. Biodiversity helps us to understand the variations among species and also how life originated on earth. Its study helps us to understand the inter-relationship between various forms of life and their adaptation to different conditions.
NEED AND PURPOSE FOR CONSERVATION OF BIODIVERSITY: Biodiversity, a contraction of “biological diversity,” generally refers to the variety and variability of life on Earth. The very existence of human species and sustainable development depend on biodiversity conservation, therefore the need for conservation of biodiversity is basically for this reason that all living creatures need other creatures and plants in one way or the other. At least 40 per cent of the world’s economy and 80 per cent of the needs of the poor are mainly derived from biological resources. Biodiversity is necessary for our existence as well as valuable in its own right as it provides the fundamental building blocks for the many goods and services which are essential