Key features (describe characteristics e.g.
Example location Animals (fauna)
climate, appearance)
Arctic Tundra  You can find them in North America,
Europe, and Asia
 Extremely cold climate.
 Low biotic diversity.
 Limitation of drainage.
 The thin layer of topsoil in the arctic
tundra thaws during the summer
months, but beneath that the ground is
permanently frozen.
Deciduous forest It has four distinct seasons: winter, spring,
summer, and fall. Winters are cold and summers
are warm. Temperate deciduous forests get
between 30 and 60 inches of precipitation a year.
Precipitation in this biome happens year-round.
Because the soil is very fertile and hardwood
trees are good for building, this biome has some
of the world's largest population centres in it. The
leaves of deciduous trees change colour and fall
off in the autumn and grow back in the spring.
Tropical rainforests  Tropical rainforests the most species of
flora and fauna than any other biome
 They are a source of many resources
 They have a very high annual rainfall
and high average temperatures, nutrient-
poor soil, and high levels of biodiversity
(species richness)
 The rainforest biome is warm all year
and must stay frost-free
 The average daily temperatures range
from 20°C to 25°C
Hot Desert  The desert is a dry area that gets less
than 250 mm of rain each year.
 Deserts can be hot or cold.
 They consist of fauna and flora that
adapt to the dry, hot, and sandy
conditions
 Unlike the UK the UAE is a desert
biome and it is very hot and has a very
warm climate.
Vegetation (flora)
(continent, country, lines of latitude)
 They are in the northern
hemisphere
 It is pretty much the world's North
Pole.
 It spans almost 20% of the earth's
surface, and is located at latitudes
55° to 70° N.
Most of the eastern half of the United States
is in this biome, as is much of central and
northern Europe, eastern China, and Japan
 They are found between the cancer
and Capricorn tropics
 About 23.5 degrees north and south
of the equator
  Tropical rainforests are found in
Central and South America,
western and central Africa, western
India, Southeast Asia, the island
of New Guinea, and Australia.
  Between 15-30° north and south of
the equator.
 Africa has a huge desert and is the
hottest continent in the world.
 UAE is a desert biome, and it gets
very hot and cold at times
 Unlike the UAE and Africa, the
UK is on the northern hemisphere
which means it gets very cold at
- Identify 1 type
- Describe its features
- Explain its adaptions
 One example of fauna in the artic tundra is
the Caribou
 To keep warm during the winter, they have
two layers of insulating fur.
 This fur, while warm is completely
hollow.  nearby soil-based plants.
 Their hairs, wide hooves, and strong legs
help them to swim as fast as 6 miles per
hour, which is how they adapt to their
environment
Animals that live here must be able to adapt to the
changing seasons. Some animals in this biome
migrate or hibernate in the winter. The pileated
woodpecker lives in coniferous and deciduous
forests.
It has a long, sticky tongue; a long, sharp pointed bill
and yellow eyes.
It uses its sharp bill to pull bark off a tree to expose
ant colonies. It uses its long, sticky tongue to poke
into holes and drag out the ants. It also digs out large
rectangular holes in trees to create roosting and
nesting spots and to expose insects!
 The Okapi is a fauna of the tropical
rainforest
 They are native to tropical forests of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo in
Central Africa.
 Okapis are diurnal and solitary in nature.
 They feed on tree leaves and buds, fruits,
ferns, and fungi because that is what they
can find easily and eat to stay alive
 One example of flora in the desert is a
camel
 It’s humps contain water for them to stay
hydrated, they have long, thick eyelashes so
they can see through a sand storm, they
have very broad feet which helps them not
sink in the sand, thick lips that won’t be
damaged by harsh weather.
- Identify 1 type
- Describe its features
- Explain its adaptions
 lichens can convert nitrogen in the air into
nitrates, which they need for their growth.
 Conversion of atmospheric nitrogen impacts the
ecosystem, because when it rains,
nitrates are leached from lichens for use by
 So lichen adapts to their environment very well.
Beech tree. They usually have usually had broad leaves.
In SUMMER, their broad green leaves help capture
sunlight needed to make food through photosynthesis.
As temperatures drop, the tree cuts off the supply of
water to the leaves. With limited sunlight and water, the
leaves are unable to continue producing chlorophyll
(green pigment in leaves) causing them to change red,
yellow, and orange leaf colours of FALL. In WINTER,
it is too cold for the trees to protect their leaves from
freezing, so they lose them and seal up the places where
the leaves attach to the branch. Losing their leaves helps
trees to conserve water loss through transpiration.
 Orchids are one example of fauna in the
tropical rainforests
 They are very well-adapted to life in the
canopy.
 They have roots with a large surface area for
rapid absorption of nutrients and water.
 Their secondary stems can hold stores of water
so the plant can withstand periods of drying.
 One example of fauna in the desert is cacti
 They can store water and use a little for a long
time so they stay hydrated and stay alive in the
harsh climate
Success criteria:
WTE -
Identifies/describes main
features
ME –
Describes in detail and
begins to explain features
EE –
Explains links between
information
Motivated students/Challenge:
Analyze why the animals and
plants you have identified in the
Arctic region are not found in
Tropical rainforests
Fauna in the arctic tundra like the
Caribou have adapted to their
cold environment and if they
were to be placed in a tropical
rainforest they would most likely
die because they aren’t used to
the heat and therefore don’t know
how to adapt to it. It would be the
same as the Okapi. It was placed
in a arctic tundra it would most
likely freeze to death due to the
fat that it can’t adapt to it because
it doesn’t know how. Now the
flora. Barely any plant can
survive in the arctic tundra
because of the harsh climate so
putting a plant from the tropical
rainforest where there is no warm
and tropical weather and climate
into a freezing tundra would kill it
and same if the lichen were put in
a tropical rainforest it would die
because it doesn’t know how to
adapt to those conditions.