Geography
What are biomes?
Quick answer
A biome is a large region of the world with a similar climate, plants and animals. Examples are desert, rainforest, grassland, tundra and the ocean.
In one sentence
A biome is a big area of the world, such as a desert or a rainforest, where the climate shapes which plants and animals live there.
Explained
Look at a globe and you will see that the world is not all the same. Near the equator it is hot and wet. Near the poles it is freezing. In between, there are dry lands, grasslands and forests. Scientists group these regions into biomes. A biome is named for its main plants and its climate, and the animals that live there are suited to those conditions.
tree
cactus
snowman
The main land biomes are:
- Tropical rainforest: hot and very wet, with thick tall trees.
- Savanna: warm grassland with scattered trees and separate wet and dry seasons.
- Desert: very dry, hot or cold. See deserts.
- Temperate forest: four seasons; trees may lose their leaves in autumn.
- Grassland: wide open plains such as the prairies and steppes.
- Taiga (boreal forest): cold, with evergreen conifers such as pine and spruce.
- Tundra: treeless and very cold, with frozen ground called permafrost.
Water has biomes too. Marine biomes include oceans and coral reefs. Freshwater biomes include lakes, rivers and wetlands. The ocean is the biggest biome, covering about 71 percent of the planet.
Two things mostly decide a biome: temperature and rainfall. Height also matters, because climbing a mountain can take you from forest to rock to snow, like travelling toward the poles. Biomes are not sealed boxes. They fade into one another, and they change over time as the climate changes. A biome contains many habitats, the smaller places where individual species live.
Examples
| Biome | Climate | Typical animal |
|---|---|---|
| Tropical rainforest | hot and wet | jaguar, toucan |
| Savanna | warm, wet and dry seasons | lion, zebra |
| Desert | dry | camel, fennec fox |
| Taiga | cold winters | moose, wolf |
| Tundra | freezing | Arctic fox, caribou |
Common mistakes
- Confusing biome and habitat. A biome is huge; a habitat is a small home like a pond or a log.
- "All forests are rainforests." Many forests are cool and not very wet.
- "The edges are sharp lines." One biome blends into the next.
Quick quiz
Biomes
Check what you know with 4 quick questions.
Question 1 of 4
What mainly decides which biome a place has?
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Related topics
Habitats
A habitat is the natural home of a living thing, where it finds the food, water, shelter and space it needs to survive.
Climate
Climate is the usual pattern of weather in a place over many years, usually 30 or more. Weather is what is happening in the sky today.
Deserts
A desert is a place that gets very little rain, usually under 250 millimetres a year. Deserts can be hot, like the Sahara, or cold, like the Gobi and Antarctica.
Rainforests
A rainforest is a dense forest that gets lots of rain all year round. Tropical rainforests are warm, wet and packed with more kinds of plants and animals than almost anywhere else.
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest continent, with 54 countries, the Sahara Desert, the River Nile, the Congo rainforest and savannas full of wildlife.
The Amazon River
The Amazon is a huge river in South America that carries more water than any other river on Earth. It flows about 6,400 km from the Andes across Brazil to the Atlantic Ocean.