Discussion of a biome using specific information about precipitation patterns, plants, animals, and general locations

QUESTIONS:

1. What biome did you choose to research and study?

My choice for study and research was the desert.

2. Describe your biome using specific information about precipitation patterns, plants, animals, and general locations. (you can include pictures)

A desert is the driest of all the biomes, receiving, on average, less than 10 inches of precipitation per year. Deserts cover about one fifth of the Earth's land surface and can be classified as hot and dry or cold deserts. The hot and dry deserts are located near the Southern or Northern Tropic, and, just as their name suggests, can receive extreme temperatures of 43-49°C during day and usually have very little rainfall and/or concentrated rainfall in short periods between long rainless periods, averaging about 250 mm of rain per year. The cold deserts are situated near the Arctic Circle and are mostly covered in snow, but can receive rainfall during spring(usually around 15-26 cm per year). Temperatures range from -2 to 26°C.

Contrary to popular belief, deserts have usually high biodiversity. Both the flora and fauna are adapted to conserve water and for heat tolerance. Also, the populations of plants and animals are not numerous and very spaced out. We can see plants like cacti, short grass, yucca, joshua trees, etc. Animals hide during daylight to control body temperature, but we can spot kangaroo rats, armadillos, coyotes, lizards, pygmy owls and many insects and arachnids.

Many deserts are found in bands along 30 degrees latitude north and 30 degrees latitude south. The largest desert is the Antarctic desert, followed by the hot Sahara. USA has four deserts: the Mojave desert, the Chihuahuan desert, the Sonoran desert, and the Great Basin desert.

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...were deaths of a certain type of fish, which occured shortly after the birds incident. Interestingly, the same phenomenon happened in certain regions of countries like Italy, Sweden, Brazil or New England.

Autopsy reports of these birds reveal that their mouths had turned pale blue after they died. While there is no scientific evidence of the cause of the birds’ deaths, the article presents a few possible causes to it, but leaves the pollution hypothesis aside, as if this could be the last cause. In the same way, the people in the town where the incident occured would rather think of senseless and unsound theories like the apocalypse, instead of mentioning the most likely cause of it: the pollution of the environment. This makes me think that people are still not aware of the state the environment is in and the possible effects of pollution.

Works Cited

wikipedia