• An ecosystem is a system of animals and plants that live together in a particular environment. The plants and animals interact with each other and their surrounding environment.
• The size of an ecosystem can vary from the very small to the very large – a garden is an ecosystem and so is a tropical rainforest. The world’s largest ecosystems are called biomes.
• The Sahara is the world’s largest hot desert. Fossils show that it was once a fertile land with rivers and lakes.
• Broadleaf deciduous forests flourish in cool, wet winters and mild, moist summers. The long temperate winters drive many mammals into hibernation. The brown bear hibernates for up to 7 months each year.
• Temperate grassland in North America is called prairie. Varying climate conditions across the continent create three prairie types: tallgrass in the east, mixed-grass on the Great Plains, and shortgrass to the drier west and south. Around 79% of the original prairie has been built on or converted to farmland.
• All our major food crops are grown in soil. As the world’s population rises, the supply of good farming soil is running low.
• Wetlands are today some of the most threatened of all Earth’s biomes. They comprise fresh and saltwater habitats, from swamps to coastal mangrove forests and act as important refuges for animals, buffer the land against extreme weather and help cleanse polluted waterways. But humans often ignore their importance.

Wetland, Indiana, USA

Next >>