Biomes

Biomes

•One of the Earth’s large ecosystems, with its climate, soil,

plants, and animals.

Climate Zone

•A region that has the same patterns of temperature, rainfall, and sunlight

Tropical Rain Forest

• Location: Near Equator

• Climate: Hot, Humid, Lots of Rainfall

• Soil: Poor Soil

• Plants: Wide variety of plants

• Animals: Reptiles, amphibians, mammals, etc.

• Important Characteristics: Most complicated food web

•Little sunlight and water penetrates the thick canopy (tons of trees)

Deciduous Forest

• Location: Every continent except Africa and Antarctica

• Climate: Hot summers, cold winters• Soil: Rich soil• Plants: Many kinds of trees that lose leaves

every fall• Animals: All types• Important Characteristics: “We live here”• Deciduous means “decay”

Grasslands

• Location: All continents except Antarctica

• Climate: Rainfall irregular, cool winters, hot summers

• Soil: Rich Soil

• Plants: Grass, Small Shrubs, Farmlands

• Animals: Small animals, large herds

• Important Characteristics: Important for world agriculture

“Bread basket of the world”

•Most crops are grown there (wheat and oats)

Desert

• Location: Midlatitudes

• Climate: Little precipitation, very hot\

• Soil: Sandy and rocky

• Plants: very little plants, cacti

• Animals: Reptiles, small mammals

• Important Characteristics: Plants grow deep roots to find scarce water

•Sahara Desert

Taiga• Location: Northern Hemisphere (Europe,

Asia, North America)

• Climate: Cool

• Soil: Mineral Poor Soil

• Plants: Forest with numerous conifers (evergreens)

• Animals: Birds, wolves, bears

• Important Characteristics: Covers 11% of Earth’s land

Tundra• Location: Far North

• Climate: Cold all year long

• Soil: Spongy Topsoil-

permafrost (permanently frozen)

• Plants: Treeless, small plants that have short growing seasons

• Animals: Caribou, polar bears, etc

• Important Characteristic: No sunlight during the winter

Three types of water ecosystems

•Saltwater, Freshwater, Brackish Water (Estuaries)

Intertidal Zone

• Area near the edge of the ocean where organisms must be able to live on land and water

Animals

• Crabs, clams, sea stars

Zone has most organisms

• More sunlight

• Producers

• Consumers

• Shelter

Near-shore Zone

•After the intertidal zone with calm waters

Open-Ocean Zone

•The deepest, biggest part of the ocean

Phytoplankton

•Microscopic Algae

Zooplankton

•Tiny herbivores

Freshwater

•Lakes, streams, rivers, ponds

•Animals: Frogs, turtles

Characteristics

•They cannot live in salt water

Estuary

•An ecosystem with a mixture of fresh

and salt water

Why not?

•They cannot live in shallow

waters

Harmed by human activity

• Close to the mouths of the rivers, where ships and boats travel

• Close to ocean where people live and vacation