Ecosystems are everywhere: a wood, a lake, a river, a lawn, a beach, the sea, even the green areas of our towns. Briefly, every centimetre of our planet is or belongs to an ecosystem. The Earth itself may be regarded as one big ecosystem. In ideal conditions, areas having consistent physical and chemical characteristics should have well-defined and easily recognisable ecosystems. But such consistent conditions cannot be found in nature. Especially in the case of terrestrial ecosystems, it is easier to identify associations of ecosystems. In particular, closely related ecosystems that share the same biogeochemical cycles and have similar abiotic components are called “biomes”. Terrestrial ecosystems can therefore be grouped into many biomes.
Mediterranean scrub
Desert
Tropical forest
Savannah
Taiga
Temperate forest
Tundra
Coral reef
Steppe
Distribution of biomes
Biome diagram
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