Biomes

Earth has a wide variety of plants and animals. Their habitats are climate dependent. Climatic factors like temperature, rainfall etc. govern the vegetation and animal community of a particular zone. The interaction between living world and non-living components is a continuous process in the environment. These two components (living and non living) constitute the ecosystem. Mainly there are two types of ecosystems- aquatic and terrestrial. The terrestrial ecosystem is composed of smaller ecosystems, which are distinguished on the basis of major type of vegetations. These ecosystems are referred as biomes.

Major Biomes on earth

• Forest Biomes

  • Tropical Rain Forest biome: It lies between the tropic of cancer and tropic of Capricorn. It receives more than 80 inches of rainfall per year. Wide variety of flora and fauna are found in this biome.
  • Temperate Deciduous Forest biome: The forest is of deciduous trees with moderate climate and covers eastern half of the United States.
  • Coniferous Forest biome: This forest belt lie between 50o and 60o north latitude, covering most part of Alaska, Scandinavia, Canada and Siberia. It extends further in southern mountainous region also.

• Desert Biomes

  • Hot deserts: it lies around Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn between 15o to 35o latitude in Northern and Southern hemisphere. It receives very low rainfall per year. Xerophytes and drought enduring shrubs dominate.
  • Cold desert (tundra) biome: Around 60o North latitude, northern regions of North America, Europe and Russia fall in Tundra biome. Treeless Arctic regions are included. It gets very low rainfall per year and remain snow covered most of the year.

• Grassland and savanna biomes:

  Grassland biome: This biome is dominated by short and tall grasses and various herbs. Low rainfall, Winter and summer are extremely cold and hot respectively. Prairies of North America and Canada, Pampas of South America and Steppes of Russia and Europe form grassland biome.

  Savanna biome: Well developed grass with small trees and shrubs constitute Savanna biome. With moderate rainfall this biome covers Central and Southern part of Africa and India and Northern Australia.