Scientists divide the Earth’s land into what are called vegetation regions.
These areas have distinct types of plants, soil, and weather patterns. Vegetation regions can be divided into five major types: forest, grassland, tundra, desert, and ice sheet.
Climate, soil, the ability of soil to hold water, and the slope, or angle, of the land all determine what types of plants will grow in a particular region.
To sum things up, let's take a look at these vegetation types succinctly.
#1 Forest
A forest is a large area dominated by trees. Hundreds of more precise definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing and ecological function.
According to the widely used Food and Agriculture Organization definition, forests covered 4 billion hectares (9.9×109 acres) (15 million square miles) or approximately 30 percent of the world's land area in 2006.
#2 Grassland
A grassland is an area of land that mostly contains grasses. There are wild grasses, and there may be some trees.
Several parts of the world have grasslands. Grasslands are found in Africa, North America, Central Asia, South America, and near the coasts of Australia.
The largest grasslands are in East Africa. Grasslands with a few scattered trees are called savannas. Others are called prairies or steppes.
Little rain falls in a grassland biome. Between 25 and 75 cm of rain falls each year, which makes the weather in these savannas hot and sunny in the summer and cool in the winter months.
#3 Tundra
In physical geography, tundra is a biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes through Russian word meaning "uplands", "treeless mountain tract”.
Tundra vegetation is composed of dwarf shrubs, sedges and grasses, mosses, and lichens. Scattered trees grow in some tundra regions.
The ecotone (or ecological boundary region) between the tundra and the forest is known as the tree line or timberline.
#4 Desert
A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life.
The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to the processes of denudation. About one-third of the land surface of the world is arid or semi-arid.
This includes much of the Polar Regions where little precipitation occurs and which are sometimes called polar deserts or "cold deserts".
Deserts can be classified by the amount of precipitation that falls, by the temperature that prevails, by the causes of desertification or by their geographical location.
Deserts are formed by weathering processes as large variations in temperature between day and night put strains on the rocks which consequently break in pieces.
Although rain seldom occurs in deserts, there are occasional downpours that can result in flash floods.
Rain falling on hot rocks can cause them to shatter and the resulting fragments and rubble strewn over the desert floor are further eroded by the wind.
#5 Ice sheet
An ice sheet, also known as a continental glacier, is a mass of glacial ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than 50,000 km2 (19,000 sq. mi).
The only current ice sheets are in Antarctica and Greenland; during the last glacial period at Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) the Laurentide Ice Sheet covered much of North America, the Weichselian ice sheet covered northern Europe and the Patagonian Ice Sheet covered southern South America.
Ice sheets are bigger than ice shelves or alpine glaciers. Masses of ice covering less than 50,000 km2 are termed an ice cap. An ice cap will typically feed a series of glaciers around its periphery.
Although the surface is cold, the base of an ice sheet is generally warmer due to geothermal heat. In places, melting occurs and the melt-water lubricates the ice sheet so that it flows more rapidly. This process produces fast-flowing channels in the ice sheet called ice streams.
Hope you now know the difference between the different regions on Earth.
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