The Seven Biomes of the World

1. The Seven Biomes of the World By: Ms. Alisca

2. Taiga • Climate: • cold winters; cool summers • About 20 inches of precipitation per year • Location: • Northern hemisphere • Plants: • Evergreens • Needle leaf • Coniferous • Animals: • Animals specialized for all types of weather like foxes, otters and wolves. • Facts: • The winters are up to six months long with cold temperatures and short summers. They only have 50-100 frost free days. • The Caribou is becoming extinct because of hunting, fires, disease and wolves.

3. Desert • Climate: • VERY hot days; cool nights • Less than 4 inches of precipita- tion per year • Location: • Mostly in Africa, North America and South America • Plants: • Plants that have good water storage like cacti. • Animals: • Elephants (who retain body heat through their ears), lions, antelope, snakes and lizards. • Facts: • Mountains on the edge of deserts prevent rain from entering. The rain stays on the other side of the mountain creating rain forests next to many deserts. These deserts are called rain shadows. • An increase in population has caused a decrease in water, and animals are finding it harder and harder to find healthy plants to eat because the plants aren’t getting their proper nutrients to grow.

4. Rainforest • Climate: • very hot and humid; about 100 inches of precipitation per year • Location: • Mostly near the Equator, Africa, Australia, Southeast Asia, Central and South America • Plants: • Shrubs, Cyprus and Cedar trees • Animals: • due to the humidity, tropical rainforests have a larger variety of animals than any other biome. Some animals there include monkeys, birds, frogs and rodents. • Facts: • Rain forests cover only 2% of the earth's surface, but they contain more than half of the planet's plant and animal species • Rain forests are becoming more and more extinct by the day because people keep on cutting down trees, making it harder for the animals to find shelter to survive.

5. Grassland • Climate: • differ from summer to winter; about 30 inches of precipitation per year. • Location: • South Africa, Central North America and the Soviet Union. • Plants: • tall grasses like buffalo grass, ryegrass, foxtail, wild oats, and purple needle grass. • Animals: • prairie dogs, coyotes, skunks, quails and bison • Facts: • grasslandsare usually in-between the desert and the forest; it could become a forest if the grasslands received any more rain and a desert if it received any less rain. • Overgrazing is a growing problem in grasslands, and it is causing for the plants to become weaker and drier, making them more vulnerable to fires.

6. Deciduous Forest • Climate: • cool temperatures; about 40 inches of precipitation per year. • Location: • eastern half of the United States, Canada, Europe, parts of Russia and Asia • Plants: • dogwood, maple and oak trees • Animals: • raccoons, deer and salamander • Facts: • Deciduous means ‘tending to fall off’, and since all of the trees leaves fall off in the forest, it got the name deciduous.

7. Tundra • Climate: • extremely cold climate; about 10 inches of precipitation per year (mostly snow) • Location: • North America, Greenland, Asia, Europe and the mountains of Africa and South America • Plants: • Moss, shrubs and liverworts (a flat version of moss) • Animals: • Snowy owls, polar bears and lemmings (similar to a hamster or gerbil) • Facts: • The word tundra comes from the Finnish word tunturi, which means a treeless plain. • Oil spills are becoming more and more prevalent and causing for animals to die and lose their homes.

8. Ocean • Climate: • The ocean temperature is normally around 40˚F, but it changes in different parts of the world. • Location: • ¾ or 75% of the Earth’s surface • Plants: • Algae, coral and seaweed • Animals: • Fish, sharks and dolphins • Facts: • Pacific Ocean: the largest of the four main oceans. • Arctic Ocean: is the smallest and coldest of the four oceans. • Indian Ocean: bordered by Asia, Africa, Antarctica, and Australia. • Atlantic Ocean: the busiest because it is the one used to transport cargo. • Oil spills, trash and toxic waste are making it hard for the animals in the underwater habitat to survive

9. Sources • Macmillan McGraw- Hill [science] North Carolina- textbook • Google Images • http ://library.thinkquest. org/C0113340/main.php?section=biomes • http ://www. ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibits/biomes/index.php • http ://www. blueplanetbiomes.org/world_biomes.html • http: //www. hesd.k12.ca.us/resource/biomes/Whatisabiome.htm • http ://www. seasky.org/sea-games/sea-word-search-game.html • http ://ths.sps.lane.edu/biomes/index1.html • http:/oncampus.richmond.edu/academics/edu- cation/projects/webunits/biomes/ofacts.html