A biome is an area with a specific climate together with the animals and plants that live there.

There are a number of major biomes on earth, and different ways of classifying them. I have chosen six main biomes, and have added a section on aquatic communities.

Intro to Deserts   Hot Deserts       Food Web       KCalorie Pyramid   Cold Deserts      Food Web      KCalorie Pyramid	Rainfall Less than 10 inches low		Rain Forests Tropical Rain Forests    Food Web     KCalorie Pyramid Temperate Rain Forest      Food Web     KCalorie Pyramid	Rainfall More than 60 inches heavy
Coniferous Forests  Food Web  KCalorie Pyramid	Rainfall 12 - 33 inches medium
			Tundra   Food Web   KCalorie Pyramid	Rainfall  Less than 10 inches low
Grasslands     Food Web     KCalorie Pyramid   Savannas	10 - 30 inches medium		Aquatic Communities     Fishes	Variable Rainfall
Deciduous Forests   Food Web   KCalorie Pyramid	30 - 60 inches medium
Special Effects Section: Latitude and Altitude
Carrying Capacity		Growing Seasons	Reproductive Strategies
Following the Energy Trail -- Figuring Out Your Planet's Energy Budget The Caloric Content of Foods Some Animal Weights and Caloric Requirements on Earth

These are the biomes that I have chosen. Each one can be subdivided into many more precisely described biomes, with more specific rainfall amounts, growing seasons, and elevations. However, in a ten week course, I think that these will be more than enough!

     It is important to remember that a biome contains smaller, specialized communities. For instance, a forest includes meadows, streams, rocky areas and bogs. A desert includes oases, sand dunes, rocks and gullies. Aquatic communities may live in fresh or salt water, shallow or deep water, rocks and mud flats. Obviously these smaller zones will also have different micro-climates which provide habitats for plants and animals not commonly found in the surrounding area.

    It seems possible that climatic zones with similar temperatures and rainfalls exist on other planets. Some alien biomes might seem familiar to us, but others might be amazingly different. Will there be life in these zones?  We can only guess. Life on this planet survives in conditions where tempertures allow terrestrial biochemistry to work. Some marginal zones, such as the ocean bottoms, the near-boiling hot springs in Yellowstone, and very cold areas in the Antarctic, support life forms with unique, specialized adaptations. Could their biochemistry be the norm somewhere else? Who knows? Yet life forms must adapt to their environments everywhere. To start thinking about this, let's see what earth's biomes are like.

     In order for life to evolve, conditions must be the same over long periods of time. On land, temperature, elevation, and rainfall are important variables. Over many generations, animals and plants adapt to the conditions where they live. When climates change, the animals and plants adapt to the changes or die out.