The Worlds Tropical Biomes

The Worlds Major Biomes

Complex interactions of climate, geology, soil types, water resources and latitude determine the types of plants and animals that thrive in different locations.  The world can be divided into 14 major ecological regions called “Biomes”.  Biomes can be used to describe what the world would be like if people had not altered the natural environment.  Hence the following map identifies the vegetation types expected to cover the globe in the absence of human alteration (Lean and Hinrichsen 1994).

Picture of world’s biomes and key to biome types from Atlas of the Environment REF333.7LEAN p12-13

Figure 1. Distribution of the World’s Ecological Biomes
Figure adapted from (Lean and Hinrichsen 1994)

Tropical Biomes

The world’s tropical biomes have been classified in a number of different ways depending on the classification scheme used.  Nevertheless, four major tropical biomes are readily identified, grasslands and savanna, warm deserts and semi deserts, dry or deciduous forests or woodlands, and tropical rainforests (Lean and Hinrichsen 1994), as shown in Figure 1. 

Next topic - Dominant tropical ecosystems