Biomes

I love Earth science, I love Environmental science, I love Astronomy, I love Geography, I love Sustainable development, I love Social Psychology - damn there's not much I don't love.  I also love to educate people who want to learn more on these subjects.  So when I decided to start a blog, I wanted to write about all kinds of topics on these subjects......  I seem to have spent some time on social psychological topics, so I think for my next several blogs I will pay a little more attention to some Environmental science - such a vast field of study its hard to know where to start.  This is what makes the study of environmental science so exciting though!  I thought this evening I would like to write about Biomes, the study of the way plants and animals are distributed across the globe.

This field of study is called Biogeography.  Climate and soil determine which plants thrive in a particular region, similar types of vegetation, as well as the animals associated with them, occur in places with climates that are similar.  These places, occupying large areas and identified by their vegetation types, are known as biomes.  For example, the belt of mainly evergreen coniferous forests that runs across Canada and northern Eurasia constitutes a biome known as boreal forest in North America and taiga in Russia.  The character of this forest is essentially the same throughout the biome, but the plant and animals species found there vary.  Im a recent blog of WA I wrote, I spoke about the fact that WA had plants that no where else in the world had.

There are twelve biomes in the world.  Although biomes can be identified by general vegetation types, the vegetation in any biome is in fact quite varied because of a number of local differences in land use and environment.  Tropical biomes occur between the tropics of Cancer (north) and Capricorn (south).  Temperate biomes can be found in temperate regions, and polar biomes are located near the poles.  Other biomes are more difficult to define precisely, because not all plant communities have clear boundaries.  The range of plants in each biome make it possible to draw the boundaries in different ways.

Around the poles, the polar ice biome supports no plant life.  The climate is exceedingly harsh and there is neither soil nor liquid water at the surface.  Bordering the polar ice is the tundra biome, where the ground is exposed and the temperature rises above freezing for a short time in summer.  Along its edges, tundra gives way to boreal forest or taiga.  Tundra and boreal forest are mainly confined to the Northern Hemisphere, because there is little land at the correct latitude in the Southern Hemisphere.

Closer to the equator, deciduous trees become more common among the conifers of the boreal forest.  The biome changes and temperate deciduous forest becomes more widespread.  This biome is restricted to the continental regions with moist climates, while temperate rain forest is found only in the wettest regions.

As climates grow hotter and drier, the biome changes again.  Temperate grassland, the prairies, steppes, pampas and veld, replace the temperature deciduous forest.  In a few parts of the world there is a biome typical of Mediterranean climates, dominated by dry woodlands and chaparral shrublands.  A belt of subtropical deserts lies across both hemispheres.  Deserts vary according to their locations, with some found along western coasts and some in the interiors of continents.  Where climates are a little moister, subtropical deserts merge into savanna grassland.  On either side of the equator there are tropical dry forests and rain forests.  The last biome, mountain grasslands and shrublands, is not confined to particular latitudes.  

Pretty cool stuff huh, id encourage you to read up more on this fascinating topic, there is so much more to learn.....