Talk:Biome
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Biome is part of WikiProject Ecoregions, a project to improve all ecoregion-related articles. If you would like to help improve this and other ecoregion-related articles, please visit the project page. All interested editors are welcome. |
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It is requested that a map or maps be included in this article to improve its quality. |
ah! any leading space on the left margin converts to ugly-font (whatever the technical term is). What you want are multiple asterisk for different bullets. ---
The new entry on Ecoregions updates the science of this entry. Biome may not be a technical term in ecology any more - or may describe the large ecological zones roughly equivalent to the continents. Source check required.
- If it's WWF ecoregions you are talking about, they tesselate neatly into the superset of WWF biomes (not the same as realms). The map from WWF is just one biome map, but its being used quite widely for global ecological analysis, I suspect because it 'feels' right and because its' freely available. --Flit 22:03, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
CAN SOMEONE MAKE A MAP OF THE WORLD WITH COLOR CODED AREAS CORRESPONDING TO EACH OF THE Biomes? THIS WOULD BE VERY HELPFUL FOR ALL -karl selm, kfwselm@earthlink.net
Australians call it 'the Bush', not 'the outback'
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[edit] Models
Hello, I'm a french user of wiki (:
If you are interested to import models and maps about the biomes tape a loop at fr:Biome
I won't permit myself to touch all of your articles Tvpm 16:31, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Replace climax with steady state
Because climax is an obsolete term, I propose replacing the following:
In ecology, a biome is a major regional group of distinctive plant and animal communities best adapted to the region's physical natural environment, latitude, altitude and terrain factors. A biome is composed of the climax vegetation and all associated subclimax, or degraded, vegetation, fauna and soils, but which can often be identified by association with the climax vegetation type.
with
In ecology, a biome is a major regional group of distinctive plant, and animal communities best adapted to the region's physical natural environment, latitude, altitude and terrain factors. A biome is composed of communities at stable steady state and all associated transitional, disturbed, or degraded, vegetation, fauna and soils, but can often be identified by the steady state vegetation type.
I am assuming here that biome remains a useful, technically valid, term. If not, it is best to revise the current wording differently than I have suggested. -- Paleorthid 13:35, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
Fixed some vandalism. Hopefully, someone who knows the subject can fix the entry. --81.174.244.104 00:27, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Map ?
What this article really needs is a map of the biomes. Can somebody provide one? Freederick 14:47, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Abiotic factors
added brief section and a link KonaScout 15:21, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
- I aggressively edited your entry, partly thinking it needed such to avoid copyvio. But I was too hasty: The copyright notification reads: All text is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license. This is fully compatible with GFDL. I won't object to reverting any protion of my contribution if it seems to detract readibility. Thanks for pointing to a great resource for further contributions to Wikipedia! -- Paleorthid 16:25, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Biomes vs. Ecozones
This article needs to explain how biomes differ from ecozones. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by P199 (talk • contribs) 16:04, 15 December 2006 (UTC).
The ecozone page explains it -- biomes are about similar kinds of landscapes and habitats regardless of the specific plant and animal species, while ecozones distinguish between different species and evolutionary history (the study of biogeography). Pfly 23:19, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Question from Biome template page Template talk:Biome
[edit] Order of Biomes
Now, I'm no oceanographer, but judging from the Riparian zone article, it appears to me that it more properly belongs in the Terrestrial biomes category, rather than Aquatic biomes. Can you explain why you listed it there?
Also, I think it would be useful to list the various biomes in some kind of order. Of course, it's possible that you did and I just don't know enough about it to recognize the order!
I'm interested in hearing your thoughts! Thanks for creating a LOVELY template! ~ Mpwrmnt 08:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
- Can someone explain this? It could probably be put in the article, also, the answer. KP Botany 15:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Whats a BIOME??
[edit] WWF "Major Habitat Types"
I can't find anything (in this article or elsewhere) on what criteria are used to define the WWF's "major habitat types" (biomes), or what other classification system it's based on. —Pengo 03:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
- The book Terrestrial Ecoregions of North America says on pp. 12-13 that the WWF grouped their ecoregions "into ten major habitat types (MHTs), following a global framework applied in other regional analyses (Dinerstein et al. 1995; Olson and Dinerstein 1998)." And that "MHTs are not geographically defined units; rather, they refer to the dynamics of ecological systems and to the broad vegetative structures and patterns of species diversity that define them. In this way they are roughly equivalent to biomes." The sources cited in full are:
- Olson, D.M., and E. Dinerstein. 1998. The Global 200: A representation approach to conserving the earth's most biologically valuable ecoregions. Conservation Biology 3:502-515.
- Dinerstein, E., D.M. Olson, D.J. Graham, A.L. Webster, S.A. Primm, M.P. Bookbinder, and G. Ledec. 1995. A conservation assessment of the terrestrial ecoregions of Latin America and the Caribbean. Washington, DC: World Bank.
- I realize this doesn't quite answer your question, but at least it points in that direction. Pfly 07:48, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Template
Can we consider revising and reintroducing the biome template that I created some time ago? I think that it would be useful to have some sort of way of navigating through the various biomes. I know that I rather briskly introduced it beforehand, but I feel that with some improvement, it could really work (I know it’s rather massive!) Cheers! Max Naylor 19:39, 2 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Introduction
I'm thinking of editing the introduction, but thought I'd post about it here first.
One of the issues is the way the word biome is defined (even in many textbooks) as a large regional grouping based on specific plants and animals (or biota). But biomes are not, strictly speaking, based on biota, as just about any global biome map shows, like this one, a quick find via google. A biome like "temperate deciduous forest" occurs on most continents, as that map shows, but the biota of any given biome is quite different on different continents. Australian forests have Agathis (kauri) trees, for example, while South America has Fitzroya (alerce), and North America has Douglas-fir. Europe has none of these. Terms like biota and "plant community" are based on specific species and groups of species, if I understand it right.
Wouldn't it be useful to point out something about how biomes are not based on specific plants or communities but rather on "ecologically similar" biota that are "not necessarily related taxonomically"? Some definitions do make this point -- like here and here. Others don't, like here, which seems to confuse biomes and ecozones ("biogeographic kingdoms" on that page).
A glossary in a WWF book I have defines biota as "the combined flora, fauna, and microorganisms of a given region"; and, in contrast, guild as "..group of organisms, not necessarily taxomonically related, .. [but] ecologically similar in .. diet, behavior, ... or with regard to their ecological role in general". They use the term "major habitat type" (MHT) instead of biome, saying that MHTs are "roughly equivalent to biomes." The glossary defines MHT as a set of ecoregions that are similar in several ways; 1) similar climate; 2) similar vegetation structure; 3) similar biodiversity patterns; and 4) flora and fauna with similar guild structures and life histories." The use of the term guild in place of biota seems significant.
Anyway, I was thinking of trying to rewrite the introduction to make this kind of stuff clearer. As it is now, it is hard to tell why biomes are not more like ecozones -- which are based on biota, distinguishing Australia from North America.
This brings up another issue with the introduction. If the stuff I wrote above is true, then biomes are not based on regional or geographic patterns. Once defined and mapped, biomes show geographic patterns, but isn't that a effect rather than a cause of defining biomes? And if so, then it is not quite accurate to say that biomes are "subdivided into ecoregions", as I've often seen. Rather, ecoregions are defined by various factors including geographic ones, resulting in a bounded region. Ecoregions are assigned to a biome (or MHT). As a result, you can make a map of biomes, but the geographic boundaries come from the ecoregion definitions and not the biome -- at least in the WWF system, which seems to be the main one used on wikipedia. There are probably other systems that do define biomes geographically and then subdivide them.
My thought is to try to condense this long babble I just wrote into something short and simple to use in the introduction. Perhaps something about the meaning of "biome" in a very general sense, then a mention of example systems, including the WWF's system, which can then be explained in more detail in its own section. Many other pages could use clarification along these lines, it seems to me.
Does this all make sense? Sorry for the lengthy text. Pfly 21:17, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Material moved from "Organism"
The following material on biomes appeared inappropriately in the article on organisms, and I have therefore removed it from there.
However, it - or parts of it - may be of use in this article. Plantsurfer (talk) 14:31, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Spatial relationships and subdivisions of land
Ecosystems are not isolated from each other, but are interrelated. For example, water may circulate between ecosystems by the means of a river or ocean current. Water itself, as a liquid medium, even defines ecosystems. Some species, such as salmon or freshwater eels move between marine systems and fresh-water systems. These relationships between the ecosystems lead to the concept of a biome.
A biome is a homogeneous ecological formation that exists over a large region as tundra or steppes. The biosphere comprises all of the Earth's biomes -- the entirety of places where life is possible -- from the highest mountains to the depths of the oceans.
Biomes correspond rather well to subdivisions distributed along the latitudes, from the equator towards the poles, with differences based on to the physical environment (for example, oceans or mountain ranges) and to the climate. Their variation is generally related to the distribution of species according to their ability to tolerate temperature and/or dryness. For example, one may find photosynthetic algae only in the photic part of the ocean (where light penetrates), while conifers are mostly found in mountains.
Though this is a simplification of more complicated scheme, latitude and altitude approximate a good representation of the distribution of biodiversity within the biosphere. Very generally, the richness of biodiversity (as well for animal than plant species) is decreasing most rapidly near the equator (as in Brazil) and less rapidly as one approaches the poles.
The biosphere may also be divided into ecozone, which are very well defined today and primarily follow the continental borders. The ecozones are themselves divided into ecoregions, though there is not agreement on their limits. Plantsurfer (talk) 14:31, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Whats Hot and Whats Not
hot- cool/popular boyfriends not-nerdy boyfriends —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.203.124.67 (talk) 00:06, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
