Kailey Newsome
Biome Paper
Desert Biome The desert biome has an interesting ecosystem if I can say that because few plants and animals or living things can survive such harsh climate. About twenty percent of the earth can fall into desert category (bioexpedition). The reason for this is there are four major types of deserts that people either encounter, visit or read about those include Hot and Dry, Semiarid deserts, Costal deserts and Cold deserts.
Hot and Dry Desert:
There are four major Hot Deserts in North America which are the Chihuahuan, Sonoran, Mojave and Great Basin (umcp.berkley). Temperatures exhibit daily extremes because the atmosphere contains little humidity to block the Sun's rays. Desert surfaces receive a little more than twice the solar radiation received by humid regions and lose almost twice as much heat at night. Many mean annual temperatures range from 20-25° C. The extreme maximum ranges from 43.5-49° C. Minimum temperatures sometimes drop to -18° C. …show more content…
The soils are is like gravel with and is great for draining water into the ground. Plants are mainly ground-hugging shrubs and short woody trees. Leaves are "replete" (fully supported with nutrients) with water-conserving characteristics. They tend to be small, thick and covered with a thick cuticle (outer layer). In the cacti, the leaves are much-reduced (to spines) and photosynthetic activity is restricted to the stems. Some plants open their stomata (microscopic openings in the epidermis of leaves that allow for gas exchange) only at night when evaporation rates are lowest. These plants include: yuccas, ocotillo, turpentine bush, prickly pears, false mesquite, sotol, ephedras, agaves and brittlebush (ucmp.berkley). The animals in this desert are burrowers and rats, along with many insects, birds and