Climate and natural vegetation - class-X

A biome is a community of plants and animals that have common characteristics for the environment they exist in. They can be found over a range of continents. Biomes are distinct biological communities that have formed in response to a shared physical climate.

Equatorial type of climate, also known as tropi­cal rainforest wet climate , is located up to 5° to 10° latitudes on either side of the equator but at some places it extends up to 15°-25° latitudes mainly along the eastern margins of the continents.

The equatorial climate is found in the following localities:

(i) The Amazon Basin in South America,

(ii) The Congo Basin in Africa,

(iii) Guinea coast in Africa,

(iv) Much of the Indo-Malaysian Region mainly in Java, Sumatra, Bor­neo, Malaysia, Singapore and New Guinea,

(v) Philip­pine Islands,

(vi) Eastern central America (parts of Panama, Costarica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala etc.), some islands in the Caribbean Sea, western Columbia and eastern Madagascar.

Biomes are largely based on the geography and climate of a region. Therefore, a biome is a Geoclimatic zone that is identifiable on a global scale and includes things such as plants and animals.

The Sahara desert is the world's largest hot desert. It is the third-largest desert behind Antarctica and the Arctic, which are both cold deserts.

Amazon basin is located in South America at 10° N and 10° S of the tropical region. This region is also referred to as the equatorial region. The Amazon river flows through the region and reaches the Atlantic Ocean through the mountains in the west.

• The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for 900,000 square kilometers, covering much of Botswana, parts of Namibia and regions of South Africa.
• The Sahara is a desert located on the African continent. It is the largest hot desert in the world and the third-largest desert overall after Antarctica and the Arctic region.
• The Atacama Desert (Spanish: Desierto de Atacama) is a desert plateau in South America covering a 1,000-km (600-mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains.
• Deserts of Australia:

Generally, A desert is defined as an area that receives less than 10 inches or 25 cms of precipitation a year, of precipitation a year. Deserts that receive rain as their main form of precipitation is called hot deserts., while deserts that receive snow as their main form of precipitation is called cold deserts.

The convectional rainfall occurs due to the thermal convection currents caused due to the heating of ground due to insolation.The convectional rainfall is prevalent in equatorial regions. In these, the warm air rises up and expands then, reaches at a cooler layer and saturates, then condenses mainly in the form of cumulus or cumulonimbus clouds. In the equatorial regions, the precipitation due to convectional rainfall occurs in the afternoon

Agricultural expansion, large-scale developmental projects, grazing, fuel wood collection, and rapid industrialization are all major valid reasons for the depletion of flora and fauna. Since all listed options are valid causes, none of these is the correct choice for a non-valid reason.

The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa, covering much of Botswana, parts of Namibia, and South Africa.

The Atacama Desert is a plateau in South America, covering a strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains, primarily in Chile.

It is an arid region characterized by extremely high or low temperatures and has scarce vegetation. The people living in desert areas have learned to cope with extremely harsh temperatures; in some places as hot as fire and some as cold as ice.

Amra Vrushti.

The Amazon Basin is characterized by high temperatures and heavy rainfall throughout the year, which is the hallmark of an equatorial climate.

Deforestation leads to a decrease in water holding capacity of the soil. The movement of water from the soil surface to the ground  may lead to floods.

The tropical rainforest is a hot, moist biome where it rains all year long. It is known for its dense canopies of vegetation that form three different layers

Desert vegetation is adapted to arid conditions, often featuring perennial xerophytic shrubs that can survive long periods of drought.