Definition: A forest biome is a terrestrial biome which includes, across its entire spatial extent, densely packed vegetation which strongly limits light penetration to the forest floor.
Definition: Expressions of the estuarine biome occur at wide lower courses of a rivers where they flow into a sea. Estuaries experience tidal flows and their water is a changing mixture of fresh and salt.
Definition: A tract of crop or grazing land, as well as the group of buildings with and often surrounding a farmhouse, including barns, sheds, and other outbuildings, used for agricultural production.
Definition: A wetland, featuring grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, and other herbaceous plants (possibly with low-growing woody plants) in a context of shallow water.
Definition: A peatland whose development is mostly independent of basins or topographical features where water collects; it simply covers the landscape like a blanket. Peat develops due to a continuous supply of water from rainfall, maintaining waterlogged conditions on the ground. Blanket bogs are ombrotrophic or rain fed, and as a result their pH lies between 3.5 and 4.2.
Definition: A linear shoaling landform feature within a body of water. Bars tend to be long and narrow (linear) and develop where a current (or waves) promote deposition of granular material, resulting in localized shallowing (shoaling) of the water. Bars can appear in the sea, in a lake, or in a river. They are typically composed of sand, although could be of any granular matter that the moving water has access to and is capable of shifting around (for example, soil, silt, gravel, cobble, shingle, or even boulders). The grain size of the material comprising a bar is related: to the size of the waves or the strength of the currents moving the material, but the availability of material to be worked by waves and currents is also important.
Definition: A wetland, featuring grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, and other herbaceous plants (possibly with low-growing woody plants) in a context of shallow water.
Definition: A wetland, featuring grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, and other herbaceous plants (possibly with low-growing woody plants) in a context of shallow water.
Definition: A transition zone between different physiogeographic provinces that involves an elevation differential, often involving high cliffs. Most commonly a transition from one series of sedimentary rocks to another series of a different age and composition. In such cases, the escarpment usually represents the line of erosional loss of the newer rock over the older.
Definition: An aquatic biome that comprises systems of open-ocean and unprotected coastal habitats, characterized by exposure to wave action, tidal fluctuation, and ocean currents as well as systems that largely resemble these. Water in the marine biome is generally within the salinity range of seawater: 30 to 38 ppt.
Definition: A wetland that features permanent inundation of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water, generally with a substantial number of hummocks, or dry-land protrusions.
Definition: A landform that extends above the surrounding terrain in a limited area. A mountain is generally steeper than a hill, but there is no universally accepted standard definition for the height of a mountain or a hill although a mountain usually has an identifiable summit and a local relief of more than 300m.
Definition: A mangrove biome is a terrestrial biome which includes, across its spatial extent, mangrove plants (Rhizophoraceae). Mangrove plants are able to withstand high levels of salinity as well as regions of anoxia and frequent tidal inundation. Mangrove biomes often occur near tropical and sub-tropical estuaries and depositional marine coastal environments where fine sediments (often with high organic content) collect in areas protected from high energy wave action.
Comment: Preliminary definition. Depending on whether mangrove trees or shrubs are present, this class could be a child of shrubland biome or woodland biome. Consider creating the appropriate classes.
Definition: Expressions of the estuarine biome occur at wide lower courses of a rivers where they flow into a sea. Estuaries experience tidal flows and their water is a changing mixture of fresh and salt.
Comment: "Large" is ambiguous. For details on "Large rivers" (e.g. the Mekong river) see http://worldwildlife.org/biomes/large-river-ecosystems This class will be replaced with a less ambiguous class.
Definition: A wetland that features permanent inundation of large areas of land by shallow bodies of water, generally with a substantial number of hummocks, or dry-land protrusions.
Definition: A habitat of rolling or flat terrain where grasses predominate. Typically, what is called a meadow has more biodiversity than a grassland as the former contains not only grasses but a significant variety of annual, biennial and perennial plants.
Definition: A forest biome is a terrestrial biome which includes, across its entire spatial extent, densely packed vegetation which strongly limits light penetration to the forest floor.
Definition: A habitat that is in or on a sea or ocean containing high concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids (typically >35 grams dissolved salts per litre).
Definition: A habitat that is in or on a body of water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids (<0.5 grams dissolved salts per litre).