biomes vocab.

Online exhibits
The world's biomes


Biomes are defined as "the world's major communities, classified according to the predominant vegetation and characterized by adaptations of organisms to that particular environment" (Campbell 1996).

Over the past several decades, increasing human activity has rapidly destroyed or polluted many ecological habitats throughout the world.

Freshwater biomes have suffered mainly from pollution.

Here we group biomes into six major types:


Freshwater
Marine
Desert
Forest
Grassland
Tundra


Conservation and preservation of biomes

A coral reef surrounds an island in French Polynesia.

Logging has depleted many old-growth temperate forests.

More recently, human activities have drastically altered these communities.

Public attention to this exploitation have helped to alleviate the problem somewhat, though many challenges are still to be faced.