World Biomes
Climates in World Biomes
Tropical Rainforest
+ Hot constant climate.
+ High humidity.
+ Big variation in precipitation:
March 300mm (highest)
August 50mm (lowest)
Hot Desert
+ Temperatures can reach 50c in a day.
+ Temperatures can fall below 0c.
+ There is only 250mm of rain per year.
Deciduous Woodland
+ Average temperatures:
Summer – 25c
Winter – 2c
+ It is a temperate climate
+ There is 500-1500mm of rainfall per year.
Soils in World Biomes
Tropical Rainforest
+ Red soils due to high iron levels and aluminium content.
+ Leaf litter above the soil.
+ Decomposing organic matter
Hot Desert
+ The soil is poorly developed with few plants.
Deciduous Woodland
+ The soil is ‘Brown Earth Soil’.
+ The soil is fertile and earthworms help decomposition.
Plant Adaptations to biomes
Tropical Rainforest
+ Shallow roots help capture nutrients from the top level of the soil.
+ Broad leaves can capture a lot of sunlight for a tree.
+ Some plants live on the surface of other plants. They grow on trees to take
advantage of the sunlight on the canopy. (Epiphytes)
Hot Desert
+ Long root systems spread out wide or go deep into the ground to absorb
water.
+ Succulents store water in their stems or leaves.
+ Some leaves have hair to help shade the plant, reducing water loss.
Deciduous Woodland
+ In Autumn, trees drop leaves to minimize water loss; they can also weigh the
tree down if it snows.
+ Wild flowers grow on the forest floor early in spring before the trees leaf out
and shade them.
+ Leaf growth is concentrated in the canopy.
Extended Writing Task
How has the vegetation adapted to different biomes?
In different world biomes; Tropical Rainforest, Hot Desert and Deciduous
Woodland, plants have adapted suitably in greatly varied ways to suit their
environment.
In a Tropical Rainforest biome, where the canopy layer is so thick that little
sunlight reaches small shrubs and plants on the Forest Floor, plants have
adapted to have broad leaves to capture as much sunlight as possible. Also,
because of the sheer amount of vegetation in the rainforests, fertile soil is very
shallow due to nutrients being reused rapidly. Plants have shallow roots to help
capture the nutrients from the top of the soil rather than have deep ones that
would be useless. It’s also this vast amount of competition within the rainforest
that has led to another plant adaptation; some plants live on the surface of
others, like trees, and use this as access to the canopy layer, where most of the
rainforest’s nutrients are.
In contrast to a Tropical Rainforest Biome, the Hot Desert Biome has very little
precipitation, with only 250mm of rainfall per year compared to a Tropical
Rainforest Biome’s 500-3000mm monthly precipitation. Because of this plants
have adapted in different ways to suit their surroundings, Succulents for
instance, store water in their stems and leaves due to the lack of water in the
environment. Some leaves also have hairs to shade the plant which also reduces
water loss. In addition to this, rather than have shallow roots on the top of the
soil, plants in a Desert Biomes have long root systems that spread out wide or
deep into the ground to absorb as much water as possible.
A Deciduous Woodland Biome is different from the two other biomes due to it
being the only one which has seasons. Due to this unique feature in the biome,
plants have adapted to seasons as they do for Tropical Rainforests and Hot
Desert Biomes. In autumn, some trees drop their leaves to minimize water loss
through winter; this also prevents snow weighing down the tree. In early spring
wild flowers grow on the forest floor before the trees leaf out, to absorb as
much sunlight as possible before being covered in shade; the leaf growth in the
biome is focused in the canopy.