Biology 2483A Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Biome, Liana, Succulent Plant
11 Dec 2017
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Document Summary
The biosphere is the zone of life on earth. Biomes are large scale biological communities shaped by the physical environment, particularly climate: has nothing to do with taxonomic relationships, categorized by dominant plant forms, not taxonomic relationships. Plants occupy sites for a long time and are good indicators of the physical environment, reflecting climatic conditions and disturbances. Terrestrial biomes are characterized by growth forms of the dominant plants. Biomes vary with mean annual temperature and precipitation: the potential and actual distribution of biomes are markedly different, extremes: tundra, desert, tropical rainforest. System does not account for seasonality: time periods of a lot of precipitation or none, human activities influence the distribution of biomes. Land use change: conversion of land to agriculture, logging, resource extraction, urban development: the potential and actual distribution of biomes are markedly different. Show the characteristic seasonal patterns of temp and precipitation at a representative location.
