(ECO) Biomes Chart: Desert Lesson
Biomes Chart: Desert Lesson
You will need your Biome Chart!
Complete the chart for each Biome in this module.
These notes are useful for studying and can be a valuable resource for upcoming Biome assignments.
Desert Biome
About 1/5 of the Earth's surface is covered with deserts. Did you know that desert biomes could be hot or cold? The Antarctic Desert and the Arctic Desert are the largest deserts in the world. They are both polar deserts. Cold deserts are near the Arctic part of the world. Antarctica is not only the coldest and driest region of the world, it is also has the highest elevation. The temperature in winter can drop as low as -60° C and in the summer it can barely get above -20° C. Cold deserts usually have lots of snow. Greenland is also classified as a cold desert. Rainfall can occur around spring. This averages out to 15 - 26 cm a year. It never gets warm enough for plants to grow. Just maybe a few grasses, lichen, and mosses.
The climate conditions in a hot desert tend to be very humid and dry. Most hot and dry deserts are near the Tropic of Cancer or the Tropic of Capricorn. Hot and dry deserts temperature ranges from 68 to 70° F. The maximum temperature for a hot desert ranges from 110 to 120° F. Hot and dry deserts usually have very little to no rain at all. Hot and Dry Deserts are warm throughout the fall and spring seasons and very hot during the summer. The winters usually have very little if any rainfall. The biome may experience concentrated rainfall in short periods between long rainless periods. The overall evaporation in a desert is greater than its precipitation. This averages out to fewer than 15 cm of rainfall a year. The Sahara in North Africa is the hottest and third largest desert in the world. The Arabian Desert is the fourth largest desert in the world and just like the Sahara, its landscape is covered with sand and sand dunes.
Three of the four major deserts in North America are located near the equator. The Chihuahuan, the Sonoran, and the Mojave deserts experience very hot temperatures. The Mojave Desert consists of the southern portion of Nevada, the extreme southwestern Utah and the eastern part of California. The Great Basin desert is much cooler and has the highest elevation of the major deserts in North America. It is the northernmost of the three hot deserts too. The Great Basin desert encompasses about ¾ of Nevada, western and southern Utah, the southern third of Idaho and the southeastern corner of Oregon. The very cold winters in the Great Basin may attribute to its very few inhabitants. Communities of small shrubs are the dominant type of plant life in this desert.
Organisms that live in a desert have adaptations that allow them to survive the lack of rain and extreme temperatures. The temperatures differentiate during the day and night time. During the day, the temperatures are very hot and at night the temperatures are very cold which make life in the desert very difficult. Most hot and dry deserts don't have very many plants. They do have some low down plants though. The only animals they have that can survive have the ability to burrow under ground. This is because they would not be able to live in the hot sun and heat. They only come out in the night when it is a little cooler.
How well would you be prepared to survive if you were stranded in a desert biome? It is an uncomfortable thought. Deserts can be unforgiving places for the ill-prepared. Visit the following sites. Each explains the unique challenges of surviving in a desert environment. While exploring these resources, think about how organisms that thrive in a desert are suited to that environment.
Deserts are a biome, like wetlands, grasslands and tropical rainforests that have an unusual type of climate and many kinds of living things. The modern definition of deserts describes them as places that receive under ten inches of precipitation, in the form of rain or snow, per year. The video below describes different types of deserts. The program gives examples of animal and plant life and explains how energy flows through desert communities due to the relationships of producers, consumers and decomposers. The video also addresses the human impact on deserts, particularly irrigation, farming, increasing population and our requirements for water. The video is approximately 24 minutes long. Pause the video when necessary to make notes. While watching the video, listen for more information or details about the answers to the following questions:
- What are several different kinds of deserts, and what are the major characteristics of each?
- What is a rain shadow, and how does a desert form in a rain shadow?
- In what ways are deserts places of great contrasts?
- What is a wash or arroyo?
- What is an alluvial fan and how is it formed?
- What is a playa?
- What are ephemerals?
- How do people affect the desert biome
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