Biomes are climatically and geographically defined as contiguous areas with similar climatic conditions on the Earth, such as communities of plants, animals, and soil organisms, and are often referred to as ecosystems. Some parts of the earth have more or less the same kind of abiotic and biotic factors spread over a large area, creating a typical ecosystem over that area. Such major ecosystems are termed as biomes. Biomes are defined by factors such as plant structures (such as trees, shrubs, and grasses), leaf types (such as broadleaf and needleleaf), plant spacing (forest, woodland, savanna), and climate. Unlike ecozones, biomes are not defined by genetic, taxonomic, or historical similarities. Biomes are often identified with particular patterns of ecological succession and climax vegetation (quasiequilibrium state of the local ecosystem). An ecosystem has many biotopes and a biome is a major habitat type. A major habitat type, however, is a compromise, as it has an intrinsic inhomogeneity. Some examples of habitats are ponds, trees, streams, creeks, under rocks and burrows in the sand or soil.

An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than an ecozone. All three of these are larger than an ecosystem.[citation needed] Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural communities and species. The biodiversity of flora, fauna and ecosystems that characterise an ecoregion tends to be distinct from that of other ecoregions. In theory, biodiversity or conservation ecoregions are relatively large areas of land or water where the probability of encountering different species and communities at any given point remain relatively constant, within an acceptable range of variation (largely undefined at this point). Three caveats are appropriate for all biogeographic mapping approaches. Firstly, no single biogeographic framework is optimal for all taxa. Ecoregions reflect the best compromise for as many taxa as possible. Secondly, ecoregion boundaries rarely form abrupt edges; rather, ecotones and mosaic habitats bound them. Thirdly, most ecoregions contain habitats that differ from their assigned biome. Biogeographic provinces may originate due to various barriers. Some physical (plate tectonics, topographic highs), some climatic (latitudinal variation, seasonal range) and some ocean chemical related (salinity, oxygen levels).

• Wikpedia’s page on Biomes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biome
  
• Various Wikipedia pages about each biome
  
  
• Wikipedia’s List of Terrestrial Ecoregions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrestrial_ecoregions_(WWF)
  
  

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Map Type

GeoJSON

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Map Source

https://climateviewer.org/layers/MRM/Geoscience-and-Oceanography/Terrestrial-Biomes-and-Ecoregions.geojson

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Attribution

George Stiller, MyReadingMapped™

Map: Terrestrial Biomes and Ecoregions by George Stiller and Jim Lee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Based on a work at climateviewer.org/. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at climateviewer.com/terms.

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