Exam 7: Climate and Biodiversity

Use the figure above to answer the following question(s). Do any of the three deserts types receive a majority of their precipitation during the summer months (warmest period)?

Deserts are primarily located in hot, tropical regions.

What drives ocean currents? Using the Atlantic Ocean as an example, explain how ocean currents distribute heat around the globe.

What is the best explanation for why tropical regions normally receive more precipitation than other areas of the globe?

Which of the following biomes has been most disturbed by human activities?

Boreal forests are composed of a few species of coniferous evergreen trees with small, needle-shaped leaves. These trees can withstand the intense cold and ____________________ of winter.

In a tropical rain forest, dropped leaves, fallen trees, and dead animals decompose ____.

Describe and explain the different leaf shapes found on the plants that dominate in the desert, tropical rain forest and boreal forest. Briefly explain the reasons for these different shapes.

The forest that grows in regions that receive continuous warm temperatures and seasonal rainfall is the ____.

The El Niño Southern Oscillation affects the weather over at least __________ of the earth for one or two years.

Use the figure above to answer the following question(s). What is the mean monthly precipitation, in millimeters, of the tropical grassland in the month of December?

Which of the following biomes has bitterly cold winters, hot dry summers, and receives sparse precipitation?

Using the environmental factors of moisture and temperature, describe the relationship between deserts, grasslands and forests.

Which of the following would be described as having ample rainfall or moisture from fog, with large conifers such as Sitka spruce and Douglas fir?

Soil nutrients are remarkably sparse in the ____________________, considering the overall high levels of biomass.

Suppose you are walking through a forest dense with oak and hickory trees, and with a thick litter layer underfoot. What type of forest are you most likely to be in?

"Widely scattered clumps of trees, warm temperatures year-round, and alternating dry and wet seasons, with herds of herbivores" are characteristics of which of the following?

Biomes are characterized by certain types of ____.

Succulent plants are normally found in temperate forests.

Vegetation layers in the tropical rain forests are structured mostly according to plants' need for ____________________.