6 Major Biomes of the World –

Discussed!
Some of the major biomes of the world are as follows:

1. Desert Biome 2. Grassland Biome 3. Rain Forest Biome 4.

Deciduous Forest Biome 5. Taiga Biome 6. Tundra Biome.

1. Desert Biome:
A desert usually has less than 25 cm of rain per year. Deserts are also
characterized by intense sunshine and very hot days (40°C and
upward) at least during summer; and the evaporation rate is very high.
Nights are generally cold, even in summers, and daily variations in
temperature reach extremes found in no other environment. Desert
life is usually well adapted to the dry weather.

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Most annual plants in the desert are small. They grow rapidly, bloom
and produce seeds all within a few days after a rain. Since the growing
season is greatly restricted, such plants live relatively small. Many
perennial desert plants have small leaves, or none at all, or their leaf
surfaces are often reduced to spines and thorns, minimizing water loss
by evaporation. Some have very long roots, reaching deeply buried
water. Others, like the cacti, absorb water rapidly after a rain and store
the same in spongy internal tissues.

Desert animals are also adapted to scarcity of water and extremes of

temperature. In most deserts, the large homoeothermic mammals and
birds are comparatively rare or are absent altogether because the
maintenance of a constant body temperature is difficult or rather
impossible under conditions of extreme heat and practically no water.

However, some animals like the camel are adapted to extreme desert
conditions. Animals, which match their internal temperature to that of
their environment, the so-called cold-blooded animals, live more
easily in the desert. Desert animals are generally small, and they
include many burrowing forms, which may avoid the direct heat of the
Sun. In all deserts small rodents are numerous and almost all are
burrowers. The kangaroo rat (Dipodomys) is a desert animal
depending on bipedal, leaping locomotion. Snakes and lizards are
common in all deserts.

2. Grassland Biome:
In a grassland biome, the vegetation is dominated by grasses, which
may grow to about 2 m in the moist areas and 0.2 m in arid regions of
the grassland biome. It is not an exclusively tropical biome but
extends into much of the temperate zone as well. The more or less
synonymous terms “prairie” (in North America), “pampas” (South
America), “steppes” (in Central Asia) “puszta” (Hungary) and many
other regional terms underscore the wide distribution of this biome.

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The common feature of all grasslands is intermittent, erratic rainfall,

amounting to about 4 to 16 cm annually. The irregularly of rain,
porosity and drainage of the soil, or both factors together prevent a
continuous or ample supply of water to plant roots. Grasses of various
kinds are particularly adapted to irregularly alternating periods of
precipitation and dryness. The environmental conditions vary greatly
in different grasslands. There are also non-grass herbaceous species,
which are called forbs.

Grassland biome probably supports more species of animals than any

other terrestrial habitat. In all grasslands, the primary consumers are
the large grazing mammals like the bisons, pronghoms (Antilocapra
Americana ) and zebra (Equus zebra). African glass-lands support
large herds of zebras and several species of grazing antelopes.

The grassland ungulates are cursorial. Hares and rodent are also
common primary consumers in the grasslands. Many rodents, like the
prairie dogs and other ground squirrels or the pocket gophers, are
burrowing or fossorial animals. Australian grasslands have herbivores
very different in appearance and relationships but ecologically similar.

These are large grazing cursorial kangaroos and small, burrowing,

rodent-like pouched “mice”. Predators are adapted to the herbivore
prey: wild dogs, lions, and the like preying on the ungulates; weasels,
snakes, and others on the smaller herbivores. Herbivorous insects
such as locusts and grasshoppers are also numerous. Grasslands also
support some herbivorous predacious birds.

3. Rain Forest Biome:

They occur in those tropical and subtropical parts where torrential
rains fall practically every day and where a well-defined rainy season
characterizes the winter. Rain forests exhibit a communal coexistence
of up to several hundred different species of trees. They cover much of
Central Africa, South and Southeast Asia, Central America, and South
America.

However, in contrast to rain forests in the tropics, the species diversity

of temperate rain forests is quite low. A tropical rain forest generally
has a hundred or more species of trees, and as many as 500 have been
observed m one such forest. Two trees of the same species seldom
stand near each other. However, the actual species present may be
totally different in rain forests found in widely separated regions of the
earth.

Tropical rain forest biome receives about 200 cm of precipitation

during a year. The productivity of this biome is more than that of any
other terrestrial biome. Because of high temperature and abundant
moisture, plant litter decomposes quickly and the vegetation
immediately takes up the nutrients released. A striking feature of a
tropical rain forest is the vertical stratification of plant communities.

Trees in such forests are normally so crowded together that they form
a continuous overhead canopy of branches and foliage, which cuts off
practically all the sunlight, much of the rain water and wind. As a
result, the forest floor is very humid and quite dark and, therefore,
plants that require only a minimum of light populate it.

Apart from the forest trees themselves climbing Lianas and Epiphytes
are quite characteristic of the tropical rain forests. Rooted in the dark
forest floor, lianas are climbing vines, which use the standing trees as
supports upon which they climb toward the canopy where they spread
their leaves in the light. Epiphytes grow on other plants. Orchids,
ferns, and many other epiphytes form veritable aerial gardens among
the high branches of the trees of rain forests.

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In rain forests animal communities too are stratified vertically into

different habitats found between canopy and ground. A much larger
proportion of animals live in the upper layers of the vegetation than in
temperate forests where most of the life is near the ground level. For
example, 31 to 59 species of mammals in British Guiana are arboreal
and 5 are amphibious, leaving only 23, which live on the ground.

In addition to the arboreal mammals (monkeys, rodents, squirrels),

there is an abundance of chameleons, iguanas, geckos, arboreal
snakes, frogs, and birds. Ants, termites, beetles and the Orthopetra, as
well as butterflies and moths are ecologically important. Frogs may be
present in large numbers.

In the Old World rain forests, ground-dwelling herbivores include

musk deer, small forest antelopes, and forest pigs. In both
hemispheres partly arboreal carnivores, especially cats such as leopard
and jaguar, kill the herbivores. Symbiosis between animals and
epiphytes is widespread. Many animals of the rain forest are
nocturnal.

4. Deciduous Forest Biome:

In the temperate zones such as Europe, eastern Asia, southern Canada
and eastern part of United States, the most characteristic biome is the
deciduous forest. Tropical deciduous forests also occur in many
tropical parts of the world. The fundamental climatic conditions of a
deciduous forest biome are cold winters, warm summers, and well
spaced rains bringing about 75 to 100 cm of precipitation per year. The
biome is also characterized by seasonal temperature variations, which
are greater than daily variations.

Winter makes the growing season discontinuous, and the flora is

adapted to this. The temperate deciduous forests cover many parts of
the United States, the British Isles, Central Europe, China and south-
eastern Siberia. Similar forests also occur in the Temperate Zone of
South America, but they are not so widespread there.

The term “deciduous” implies the most obvious characteristic of this

biome and the most obvious adaptation to it (i.e., trees shed their
leaves and hibernate). Half the year or somewhat more is the growing
season, when perennial plants put on their leaves and are active, while
annual plants go through the whole cycle from seed to seed.

The rest of the year the trees are bare. Common trees of the deciduous
forest are beech, tulip, sycamore, maple, oak, hickory, elm, poplar, and
birch. Chestnuts were also formerly common. A deciduous forest
differs from a rain forest in that trees are spaced at considerable
distance from one another and there are only few species of trees.
Compared with the hundreds of tree species in a rain forest, there may
be only about 10 or 20 in a deciduous forest.

The most striking herbivorous mammals of a deciduous forest are the

browsing deer, mainly the white-tailed deer in North America and
other species in Eurasia and South America. In Eurasia wild pigs (or
boars) are also found in this biome, but they do not occur native in
America. The principal carnivores are the large cats including puma,
mountain lion, cougar, or panther (all one species, Felis concolor)
ranging into most of the environments of North and South America.
Foxes are also common in them.

The arboreal martens are locally as common here as in the taiga, and
the raccoon (absent in Eurasia) is especially abundant in deciduous
forests of North America. Throughout the world these forests are also
rich in tree squirrels. Among mammals of the North American
deciduous forests, over a third of the species are mainly arboreal.
Tree-nesting birds are also abundant and woodpeckers are
characteristic of this biome. The leaf and mold-covered forest floor
supports many species of invertebrates and fungi.

5. Taiga Biome:
North of the deciduous forests and the grasslands across northern
Europe, Siberia, and Canada, stretches the taiga (northern coniferous
forest biome). It is also called the boreal forest biome. This is a biome
of long, severe winters and of growing seasons limited largely to the
few months of summer. The vegetation is extremely frost-tolerant, as
temperatures may fall to – 60° C during the winter. The precipitation
is in the range of 40-100 cm. Hardy conifers, spruce in particular, are
most representative of the flora; and moose, wolves, and bears of the
fauna.

The taiga is largely a zone of forests, which differ from other types of
forests in that they usually consist of single species of coniferous tree.
Thus, over a large area, spruce, for example, may be the only kind of
tree present. Among other coniferous trees, alder, birch, and juniper
thickets are common. They might be found in an adjacent equally
large area. Many of the larger herbivorous vertebrates, such as the
moose (elk), snowshoe hare, and grouse depend on broad leaved
developmental communities of spruce forest.

The seeds of conifers provide important food for many animals such as
squirrels, siskins, and crossbills. In taiga, seasonal periodicity is
pronounced and populations tend to oscillate. The snowshoe hare-lynx
cycles are classic examples. Smaller mammals are much more varied
than in the tundra. Black bears, wolves, and martens are more
common in this biome that elsewhere.

Fishers, wolverines, lynex and some rodents such as the northern vole
are practically confined to it. Squirrels and birds also thrive in
coniferous forests. Most of the birds here, however, are summer
breeders and migrate southward in the autumn. The many species of
insects remain dormant during the severe winters.

6. Tundra Biome:
In Asia, Europe, and North America a vast northern zone encircling
the Arctic Ocean is known as the tundra. This biome lies north of the
taiga. The tundra has the arctic climate, which is cold, and there may
be continuous night during the winter season and continuous daylight,
of comparatively low intensity, during the summer. Some distance
below the surface, the ground is permanently frozen.

This is called permafrost. Above the ground, frost can form even
during the summer; plants often freeze solid and remain dormant up
to the growing season. The latter is very brief, as in the deserts; but in
the tundra the chief limiting factor is temperature, and not water
supply. However, alpine tundra does not contain permafrost.

Precipitation is generally less than 50-60 cm but in low lying areas

soils may remain saturated with water during most of the growing
season. Plants are low, ground hugging forms, and frees are absent.
Lichens (especially reindeer moss), mosses (especially Sphagnum)
coniferous and other shrubby growths, and herbs with brilliantly
coloured flowers, are characteristic of the habitat.

The warm-blooded animals of this biome are caribou, reindeer, musk

ox, arctic hare, arctic fox, lemming, and polar bear. They are well
protected by fur. Some of the resident birds, like the ptarmigan (an
arctic grouse-like bird), and mammals, like the snowshoe hare, turn
white in winter. White is protective colouration in a snowy
environment and also minimizes heat loss by radiation. Musk oxen
and caribou (wild reindeer) are large herbivores, which depend mainly
on the abundant moss and lichens. Arctic hares and lemmings (small,
rat-like rodents) are numerous and are preyed on by arctic foxes.
Polar bears are amphibious, frequenting coasts and ice flows but also
wandering inland on the tundra. Insects, especially flies, are so
numerous as to be one of the major drawbacks of the tundra from the
human point of view. Their eggs and larvae are particularly cold
resistant and the adults appear by the billions on warmer summer
days.

Migratory birds, especially waterfowl, are conspicuous during the

short summer. Well marked oscillations, or cycles, in population
density of some animals are characteristic of tundra communities. For
example, when lemmings abound, predatory birds, such as owls are
abundant and breed. Whereas few predators breed at all during the
years of prey scarcity.

However, the life does not end at the northern margin of the tundra
but extends farther into the ice and bleak rock of the soilless polar
region. Polar life is almost exclusively animal, and it is not really
terrestrial in any way but is based on the sea {e.g. walrus, seals,
penguins).

However, some authors also describe the so-called alpine tundra

biome. This occurs above the tree line as in the Rocky Mountains of
North America and on the Tibetan Plateau of Central Asia. The alpine
and arctic tundra have some similarities as well as differences. Alpine
tundra does not contain permafrost; it has warmer and longer growing
seasons resulting in higher productivity, less severe winters, and
higher species diversity than arctic tundra.