Biomes and ecosystems

This article on biomes and ecosystems describs different types of biomes and ecosystems and where you can find them.

Climates
Around the world, there are various biomes with vegetation that depends on the climate patterns of the region. For example, wet regions around the equator are tropical rainforests, and dry regions typically farther from the equator are deserts. There are some basic types of climates as designated by Köppen, found in various regions of the world:


 * Tropical (Type A): Warm or hot and often wet. This is what you get in tropical rainforests and most of the tropics region in general. Most places near the equator (like the northern part of South America, Central America, parts of Southeast Asia, some of Africa, etc.) have this kind of climate.
 * Dry (Type B): Low precipitation. This is what you get in deserts. Usually, deserts have low populations because water is necessary for survival. They're found in northern Africa, southern Africa, Australia, and many other places.
 * Temperate (Type C): Not exceptionally hot or exceptionally cold, but with a range of temperatures over the course of the year and distinct seasons. Britain is a good example, along with New Zealand and much of the Mediterranean.
 * Continental (Type D): Cold winters and hot summers, and moderate precipitation. This type of climate occurs in much of Canada, Russia, Eastern Europe, northern China, and the northern United States.
 * Polar (Type E): Dry and bone-chillingly cold for most, if not all of the year. These places have low populations, or no people at all and include Antarctica and most of Greenland. These regions are often covered with ice sheets, and are divided into "tundra" and "ice cap" climates.

Climates vary over long periods of time, and major natural disasters can influence them for shorter periods. Well-known periods of climate change include the Medieval Warm Period that occurred during the Middle Ages and the "Little Ice Age" at the end of the Middle Ages.

Biomes
Biomes are large regions that have similar climates, flora, and fauna. To divide the world into a few ecological zones is a difficult attempt, notably because of the small-scale variations that exist everywhere on earth and because of the gradual changeover from one biome to the other. Their boundaries must therefore be drawn arbitrarily and their characterization made according to the average conditions that predominate in them.

Ecosystems
Ecosystems are more specific than biomes, being a community made up of living organisms and nonliving components such as air, water, and mineral soil. In an ecosystem, living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic) components interact through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Ecosystems can be of any size but each ecosystem has a specific, limited space, and there are too many ecosystems around the world to be listed in this article.

Ecoregions
Ecoregions are regions with similar endemic species. Most of them correlate at least partially with the world's continents or climate regions, and include many different biomes and ecosystems:
 * Eurasian wildlife in Europe, northern Asia and north Africa
 * African wildlife in sub-Saharan Africa
 * South Asian wildlife in south and southeast Asia
 * Australasian wildlife in Australia and New Zealand
 * North American wildlife in most of North America
 * South American wildlife in Central and South America
 * Wildlife of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica

Prepare
Whenever you're traveling to a destination, you should check both the weather and the climate of where you're visiting. Wikivoyage provides graphs on many destination articles that show average high and low temperatures for each month in a particular city. For example, the climate data for Acadia National Park:

Tropical rainforest
These regions are characterized by continual humid heat, dense jungle, heavy rainfall, and numerous large rivers. They can be found close to the equator, particularly in Brazil, Ecuador, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Central America, Central Africa, most of Southeast Asia, Hainan, Far North Queensland, the Top End of the Northern Territory and Papua New Guinea. They are shrinking in area due to the intense logging rate in Brazil and some other countries.

While tropical islands such as Bali are among the most beautiful — and popular — tourist destinations on the planet, inland tropical destinations tend to be off the beaten path.

Subtropical rainforest

 * See also: Southern United States, South of Brazil, parts of Southeast of Brazil, India, East Asia, Mexico, Middle East, New South Wales, South East Queensland, Western Australia, Victoria

The farther you go away from the equator, the more temperature variations occur between summer and winter. While temperature variations between the seasons are still not large around 20° north, and aren't extreme at 30°, the variations are enough to create a change in the climate and flora and fauna. Flora in a subtropical region partially resembles a temperate forest as there exists a mixture of temperate and tropical plants in these subtropical rainforests.

The amount of rainfall in a subtropical region is not as much as would be expected in somewhere like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and due to the intertropical low pressure zone (the ITCZ) moving with the seasons, rainfall totals vary greatly by month, with summer months receiving the highest rainfall of the year.

Desert

 * Sangar_western_sahara.jpg


 * See also: Arid region safety, Northern Africa, Southwestern United States, much of Mexico, Middle East, much of the Australian Outback, Southern Africa, and much of Central Asia

Deserts are dry regions where relatively little vegetation occurs, and they generally consist of either sand dunes or rock formations, often surrounded by semi-desert regions with shrubs and other small plants. They can reach temperatures higher than those in the tropical and subtropical regions but the lack of humidity makes desert heat not quite as unbearable on a degree-to-degree scale; and while in a tropical climate is unbearable, in a desert climate to reach the same unbearable heat the temperature has to be about. However, desert climates reach higher temperatures than tropical ones; the North American record high was made in Death Valley, with the temperature passing.

Due to the lack of rainfall, much of Antarctica is technically a desert, but as a biome it qualifies as a Type E ice cap climate due to its extremely cold temperatures unlike anywhere else on Earth.

High-elevation desert

 * See also: Arid region safety, Cold weather, Tibet, Nevada, and parts of other Western states

In high-elevation deserts, the amount of precipitation is slightly higher than what would be experienced in a low-elevation desert because the high elevation captures more precipitation. The higher elevation causes cooler year-round temperatures than those experienced in most lower-elevation deserts. High deserts are often farther north than ordinary deserts, intensifying the possibilities of extreme cold during the winter and giving them a continental climate. (Indeed, high-elevation deserts are found inland on large continents.)

Mediterranean



 * See also: parts of California, Southern Europe, central and northern Israel, South Africa, much of coastal South Australia and Western Australia, South East Queensland, northern North Island, Lebanon, and Turkey, and parts of North Africa

These areas can be quite varying in their vegetation, but are generally thought of one due to similarities in climate, which consists of fairly cool winters and hot summers, with most of the rainfall occurring in winter, and the wine-growing for the most part limited to Mediterranean climate regions. Population densities are usually quite high in these regions because, while temperatures can get hot in summer, the overall climate is tolerable and habitable compared to that of deserts or tropical regions.

Temperate and continental

 * See also: Canada, much of the United States, Europe, Russia, Central Asia and northern East Asia, Tasmania, New Zealand, Patagonia

Temperate climates are common in the Northern Hemisphere, and temperate regions are characterized by four seasons; spring, summer, autumn and winter. Differences in precipitation are not as pronounced around the year and during the winter snow is possible or even expected in much of the temperate zone. Plants are growing only for a part of the year. Much of the temperate areas the furthest away from the equator (and at high altitudes elsewhere) is covered by boreal forest, where pine and spruce (green also in winter) dominate; in Eurasia this is taiga. Temperate regions that receive cold winters and are far from the equator are known as "subarctic". In the taiga belt and the subarctic regions evaporation is low due to low temperatures, and mires and bogs are common.

Continental climates typically border temperate climates and like temperate regions receive four seasons, but in a continental climate seasonal differences are exaggerated, and winters can be bitterly cold and summers hot. The distinction between temperate and continental is not always a clear one.

Grassland


Grasslands go by various names in different parts of the world, varying from the savanna in Africa to the Eurasian steppe and the prairie of the Midwestern United States and of the south of the Canadian Prairies. Trees are rare in grasslands, except by rivers and creeks, but farming is fairly common. The climate factors that cause grasslands are varied but in many cases an underlying factor is moderate annual rainfall or semi-arid conditions, climate types most trees cannot survive.

Temperate forest
Many temperate forests, unlike tropical forests, have to endure cold weather in winter but rarely extreme heat, even in summer. In the Northern Hemisphere, they occur in northern areas, south of the tundra, and certain high-elevation areas farther south.

Tundra

 * See also: Cold weather, far northern parts of Canada, Alaska, Nordic countries and Russia as well as Subantarctic Islands

On the tundra the vegetation is low, dominated by mosses, grasses and shrubs, or even lichen. Temperatures vary from cool in the summer to cold or extremely cold for the rest of the year. In mid-summer the sun doesn't set for several weeks or months, and correspondingly in the winter it doesn't rise for a similar period. Human population densities are low, with very few cities, but the summer can see quite lively animal life, especially migrating birds.

Arctic/Antarctic


Permanently covered in snow and ice, vegetation in the Arctic and Antarctic is mostly limited to liverworts, lichen and mosses on ice-free shores, and most animals depend on the sea. Human habitation is limited to research stations, where crew and supplies are flown in and out. Temperatures rarely if ever raise above freezing, and in the winter temperatures below −50 °C (−60 °F) aren't unheard of in the Arctic and coastal Antarctica. In inland Antarctica, such temperatures are guaranteed in winter. In the summer the sun is up all day and night, and in the winter the sun doesn't rise at all. At the poles, the sun rises above the horizon at the spring equinox, and drops below it at the autumn equinox.

Everywhere in Antarctica's inland is cold and dry. The continent's population consists of scientists who do not settle in Antarctica permanently.

Regions
The section below lists regions of the Earth (like particular deserts, etc.) where you can find a certain type of biome. For specific destinations, please see the destination section, which comes after this one.

Tropical




Grassland




Destinations
The following are specific locations that showcase the scenery of each biome. For information about larger areas associated with a particular biome, please see the regions section above.

Arctic/Antarctic

 * has the best of Antarctica's scenery and wildlife, and is routinely visited on cruises.
 * has the best of Antarctica's scenery and wildlife, and is routinely visited on cruises.

Weather
The nicest time to visit the tropical, subtropical, and desert biomes is in winter (when it is less hot); Mediterranean, grassland, and high desert biomes in either spring or fall (neither hot nor wet); and temperate forest, tundra, and Arctic/Antarctic biomes in summer (not too cold). However, Earth is such a large planet with so many different climate types, land formations, and natural disasters that you must check a destination's general climate and weather conditions before visiting. You may also want to specifically see the area in some other season, such as the snowy winter of some temperate regions.

Wildlife
Not only do different biomes have varying climates, but they also have varying wildlife. Viewing wildlife is an important and exciting reason to travel to other biomes; however, different wildlife means that on your journey to another biome you will encounter flora and fauna, probably some of them dangerous, that you have never been in contact with before. Below are some examples of dangerous fauna that can be encountered in different biomes:


 * Bears: temperate forest (black bears and grizzly bears), tundra (grizzly bears and polar bears), Arctic (polar bears)
 * Lions, but not mountain lions: African savanna
 * Leopards: Old World tropical
 * Tigers: largely tropical; however, there are also Siberian tigers, which are far from tropical creatures

Endangered animals
While oak trees or ladybugs may be common in your neighborhood and each individual living thing might not seem very important, in many biomes there are animals which are severely threatened due to loss of their habitat (often due to development), poaching, or because they have always lived in small numbers. When people interfere with species that would naturally exist in small numbers, there is a high risk of the species dying out completely. Once a species dies out, other species can be put at risk as well, and a domino effect can then occur that results in the complete destruction of an ecosystem. Fortunately, this has not occurred in nature yet, but with human populations continually rising and therefore high consumption rates of food, water, plastics, etc., the risk of habitat destruction (particularly in less developed countries) increases with time unless people travel responsibly.