Elan Caldwell

BioEthics
Ms. Turin
4-6-16

Biomes

A biome is a large area of plants and animals that live in a certain region. Biomes over
time change and there are five types of biomes in the world. There is the Ocean, Deserts, rain
forests, and the tundra. The importance of biomes is that it cannot be overestimated and that
having these changes could either affect us or not affect us.

Coral Reefs

A Coral Reef is are large underwater structures that have exoskeleton (a skeleton that
shows on the outside) and that they are marine invertebrate animals. What makes Coral Reefs
hard is that they take calcium carbonate from the sea water so they can develop a durable
exoskeleton to protect themselves from predators. Coral reefs start out as a polyps and and new
ones live on the exoskeletons of the developed coral reef. In general, coral reefs do take a while
to grow but in the end, they become something beautiful to look at. The Phylum Cnidaria is
related to the coral polyps because they both are described to stay together in large colonies.
Jellyfish, small fish, anemones, and other underwater animals live in the coral reefs.

Tropical Rain Forest

A tropical rainforest is a large forest with really tall trees that has a warm temperature
year round, they cover less than 6% of the earths land surface, and the rain forest gets 100
inches of rainfall in a year. The three layers of the rainforest are Canopy, Understory, and the
Forest floor. The Canopy are very large trees that cover most sunlight but still manages to show
some sunlight. The Understory (the lower canopy) is made up of the trunks from the canopy
trees, shrubs, plants, and small trees. There is very little air so that leads to a lot of humidity and
it has constant shade. The Forest Floor is almost always shaded because of the trees. Most of the
area have some sunlight due to a fallen canopy tree and a few bushes and herbs can grow under
that sunlight. If a person would go to the rainforest, he or she could easily walk through most
parts and there is a 1% chance of sunlight that strikes the forest floor because of all of the
Canopy trees covering above. A lot of liter can be on the forest floor but it does get decomposed
like termites, earthworms, and fungi and then the heat and humidity help it decompose it faster.
This is a organic matter. The Rainforest is important because most of the species of animals live
there, rainforests help absorb carbon dioxide to reduce the effects of worldwide climate change.

The Desert

A desert is a dull area of land that is extremely hot and there is very little water and plants
and animal life. Deserts usually cover one fifth of the earth lands surface. In the desert, the
temperature changes daily. Hot deserts can get up to 20 to 25 degrees celsius and cold deserts can
get up to -2 to 4 degrees celsius. Hot deserts mainly have very little rainfall and cold deserts
usually have lots of snow and they also have rain around spring time. Usually there are very little
plants in the desert but when there is, plants are almost hugging the ground like shrubs, and short
woody trees. Also the leaves over there are packed with nutrients and they all have to survive on
these adaptations. With animals, there are small nocturnal animals like bats. Insects, birds,
antelopes, ground squirrels, jackrabbits, and kangaroo rats also live in the desert and adapt.

The Tundra

A tundra is a type of biome where tree growth is limited by low temperatures and short
seasons and it's cold and harsh conditions make it hard for animals to live in. The tundra has two
seasons which is a long winter and a short summer. During the winter time, it lasts about eight
months and it gets extremely cold and during the summer time, it's shorter and and it can get
warm up to about 50 degrees which causes the snow to melt and wetlands to form. A permafrost
is a layer of ground that stays frozen throughout the year. The layer is only a few feet below the
surface and usually what permafrost does is that it prevents trees from growing in the tundra
because trees need to have deep roots in order to grow and they can't grow in frozen ground.
Plants in a tundra mainly cannot survive in the cold harsh weather. But there is some plants that
do grow there like grass, herbs, shrubs, and lichens. These plants stay low to the ground because
the icy winds. Animals living in the tundra has a lot more activity during the summer than the
winter because birds migrate during the summer, insects lay eggs in the summer, and some
animals hibernate in the winter. There are some animals are adapted to the winter in the tundra.
Some animals change their coats, and some animals are active during the harsh winter like arctic
foxes and snowy owls.