The Science of Tropical Savannas
Savannas are part of the Grassland biome, and are generally found in regions dominated by the "Wet-Dry Climate." Tropical Savannas encompass almost one half of the entire continent of Africa as well as many parts of Australia, India, Mexico, and South America. The Tropical Savannas in Australia take up over one-third of the country, and provide natural resources that contribute much of the money that supports the national economy.
The Climate is the most important factor in creating a savanna. Tropical Savannas are always found in hot weather with a mean temperature of among eighty-five to ninety degrees Fahrenheit, where the annual rainfall is from about twenty to fifty inches per year. Yet the rain does not fall at a constant rate all year. In fact, practically all the rainfall is condensed into six months of the year, known as the Wet Season. On the contrast, the following six months is a long period of drought, and yes, this time is called nothing but the Dry Season. Savannas, are often what surrounds the very wet Tropical Rain forest.
The Abiotic factors, non-biological factors that are part of Savannas are temperature, climate, soil, and sunlight. All of these factors are crucial to the biome and how it the organisms in it succeed. Most Savanna soils are rather poor, but they have better quality of soil than that of the soil in the rain forest. But the savanna has less rainfall, and plants need water to survive.
Biotic factors, or biological factors that influence and are a part of this biome are ALL organisms living in the biome.
The vegetation of the Savannas consists of tall grasses such as star grass, and red oat grass both of which can grow reaching a height of three m...
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...heir energy get stored in the soil and used again in the cycle. For example: the red oat grass is consumed by the Thomson gazelle, the Thomson gazelle is then attacked and consumed by the cheetah, the cheetah is consumed by the lion, the lion once dead is consumed by the vultures and the land scavengers, and they are consumed by the decomposers.
Symbiotic, mutualistic, and parastic relationships are very common in the the savanna.An example of a symbiotic relationship is the African Elephant and the tick. The tick lives on the elephant and shields them. The elephant recieves benefit as well. They get cleaned and maintain that any outside parasites do not come in to the elephant and damage. A type of parasitic relationship is the African termite and the Acacia trees. The termites consume all the nutrients from the inside of the tree killing it.
Some Abiotic features include Cold Climate, Rain, Snowfall, Snow Covered Ground, Snow, Sun, Ice, Water, Strong Winds, Short Days in the Summer, Very Cold and Long Days in the Winter, Minerals, Temperature, Carbon Dioxide, Air, Little Rainfall, Poor Soil.
Organism, populations and communities are always responding to the abiotic, and biotic factors in their communities, and it also occurs in the Pride Lands. Abiotic factors are the nonliving things in an ecosystem, and biotic factors are the living things in an ecosystem. There are many examples in the Pride Lands that organisms, populations and communities respond to these factors like when Mufasa dies, and when Scar takes over the Pride Lands.
Another biome in the park is their temperate forest. Temperate forests have high humidity, high levels of precipitation, and variety of trees are also included. Freshwater biomes surround the park as well.
Tropical rainforests are an extremely unique and diverse ecosystem that are located around the earth’s equator. They once covered roughly 7% of the world, but due to human encroachment that has dwindled to just 2%. It is a highly moisture rich environment that typically receives anywhere between 60 and 400 inches of rainfall annually and average humidity ranges from 70 to 90%.
Because it has a large number of organisms living in a relatively small place, it increases the density of living organisms in one area. Minimal or significant impacts to these ecosystems could affect the balance of the area, effectively ruining the whole ecosystem. The ecosystems evaluated in this report are: Cool Temperature, Warm Temperature and Sub-Tropical rainforests.
The ecosystem I have chosen is tropical rainforest. In the following paragraphs, I am going to firstly introduced the structure of tropical rainforest in brief, with the second part of the plant ecology and last the diversity within this ecosystem.
The following paper will explore two different biomes: Boreal Forest and the Tropical Rainforest. An examination of these two biomes will provide an understanding of how these biomes exists and the various types and forms of processes that acted on it and are acting on it both biologically and through abiotic factors.
In the Savanna during the wet season, all of the plants are growing freely and at an enormous rate. It rains often during the wet season so the lakes and streams are flowing. The animals that migrated away during the dry season all return back to
...ge, the leaves will dry up and eventually fall to the ground creating producing the nutrients to the soil.
Dry lands is a previous stage into what can develop the atrocity of desertification. These plains of ground lack moisture. These areas lose it either to evaporation or by transpiration of plants. Generally the land that is considered dry lands is still used by primitive technologies within herding and farming. This weak land is put on even l...
Australia is home to the great barrier reef which is the world's largest coral reef system, and home to the kangaroo. Australia is the driest continent in the world. The outback is the part of Australia that few live in because it’s a vast desert (“Australia”). The great dividing range is a long chain of mountains that runs along the Pacific Coast of Australia (“Australia”). Australia is the driest inhabitable country in the world (“Australia”). The great barrier reef of Australia is the largest in the world (“Australia”). Australia is already a dry country and if the temperature rises anymore due to climate change than Australia could suffer from more severe forest fires and be doomed.
Tropical rainforest have lots of rain because it is very hot and wet due to its location along the equator. That means that there is more direct solar radiation hitting the land and sea there than anywhere else. They release moisture into the atmosphere which returns to the ground as rain. It rains more than ninety days a year in tropical rainforests and the strong sun usually shines between the storms. The water cycle repeats often along the equator. The main plants in this biome are trees. Tropical rainforests store water like a huge sponge. In fact, it’s believed that the Amazonian forests alone store over half of earth’s rainwater a lot of the rain that falls on the rain forest never reaches the ground. It stays within the trees because the leaves act as a shield, and some rain never gets past the trees to the smaller plants and grounds below. Surprisingly, soil in rainforests is very poor in nutrients. This is because the nutrients are stored in the vast numbers of trees and plants rather than in the soil. Tree roots bind the soil together, while the canopy protects the soil from heavy rains. W...
The Amazon is home to 390 billion Trees and 16,000 species. Figure 1 is the Food chain of species located in the Amazon. As seen on figure 1, the chain is displayed in a manner where organisms are arranged from their group (producer, consumer or decomposer). Arrows are also visible representing the flow of energy showing the direction of the energy being transferred from one organism to the other. One example is that Toucan feeds on Mango Tree, thus why having the arrow pointing from the tree to the Toucan, the Toucan is then hunted by its predator, the Caiman, hence why the arrow is pointed to the Caiman, this structure is evident throughout the food web as it illustrates the flow of energy. The food web system is an essential factor for examining the behaviours and interactions of the organisms such as prey to predator relationships becoming crucial for keeping the whole system
The Sahara’s climate is very hot and dry. Although it is very hot during the day, it does become cold at night. On average, it only has 8 inches of rainfall per year. The Sahara's climate consists of b...
As well as Abiotic, there are also Biotic factors which contribute to plant growth. This is by supplying the living organisms and factors with a way to interact and break down all the nutrients. These all break down into 3 categories; producers, consumers and decomposers. Producers are organisms such as grass and trees. They are producers who “absorb the sun's energy and convert the energy into food for themselves” (Minho & Lewis, 2017) By them absorbing the sun, it allows them to grow bigger and allow the plants to flourish. Consumers are the organisms that eat other animals or produce. Such as a hawk eating a mouse or a deer eating grass. These are essential to the ecosystem so that they speed up the decomposing stage. The Decomposers break down dead substances, this “returns nutrients to the soil so they can be reused by producers to create food” (Minho & Lewis, 2017) These biotic factors influence snow pea plants by acting as a producer for other animals and humans, as well as decomposing decaying materials and returning the nutrients to the