Good Learning Co.
SavannahYear 8
← Geography
GeographyWeather, climate and living things30 min★★ difficulty

Biomes, vegetation belts and ecosystems

Climate decides which plants can survive, and plants decide which animals can. In this lesson you learn how the great biomes are arranged in belts around the planet, how nutrients cycle within them, and why an ecosystem can collapse when one link is removed.

Part of your national curriculum
  • Human and physical geography: Understand the key processes in biology relating to biomes, vegetation belts and ecosystems

Lesson overview

What you'll learn in this lesson

Understand the key processes in biology relating to biomes, vegetation belts and ecosystems

Key learning points

  • • Why biomes sit in bands
  • • Adapted to the conditions
  • • The nutrient cycle
  • • When a link breaks

This lesson at a glance

  • 30 minutes
  • 19 parts to scroll through
  • 4 quick checks
  • Marked quiz at the end
  • Gentle pace: short sittings with pauses

Words to know

processesbiologyrelatingbiomesvegetation

Scroll down — the lesson carries on below

Part 1 of 19 · Discover5%
1

Watch & discover

Part 1 of 19

Watch first

Biomes, vegetation belts and ecosystems

An English teaching video on this topic from iNewittAll. Watch it, then scroll down for the lesson.

In a nutshell

Understand the key processes in biology relating to biomes, vegetation belts and ecosystems

2

What you already know

Part 2 of 19

Before we start

What you already know

You should be able to read a climate graph and describe temperature and rainfall patterns.

Recap: Weather, climate and the change since the Ice Age
3

Key words

Part 3 of 19

Key words

Words you'll need today

Biome
A very large ecosystem defined by its climate and typical vegetation.
Ecosystem
A community of living things and the physical environment they interact with.
Nutrient cycle
The movement of nutrients between soil, plants (biomass) and litter.
Adaptation
A feature that helps an organism survive its conditions.
Food web
The linked feeding relationships in an ecosystem.
4

Learning cycle

Part 4 of 19

Learning cycle 1 of 2

Belts around the planet

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

5

Explore the idea

Part 5 of 19

Learn

Why biomes sit in bands

Solar energy arrives most intensely at the equator and most weakly at the poles, and global air circulation adds belts of rising and sinking air. Rising air near the equator brings heavy rain and tropical rainforest; sinking air near 30 degrees brings the hot deserts; the temperate belt has moderate rain and deciduous forest; further north come coniferous forest, then tundra, then ice. Altitude repeats the pattern in miniature as you climb a mountain.

6

Explore the idea

Part 6 of 19

Learn

Adapted to the conditions

Rainforest trees grow tall with buttress roots and drip-tip leaves to shed heavy rain. Desert plants store water, reduce leaves to spines and send roots wide or deep. Tundra plants stay low to avoid wind and grow fast in a short summer above permanently frozen ground. In every case the adaptation matches the limiting factor: light in the rainforest, water in the desert, temperature in the tundra.

7

Quick check

Part 7 of 19

Quick check

Why is tropical rainforest found near the equator?

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Quick check

Part 8 of 19

Quick check

A drip-tip leaf is an adaptation to…

9

Reset break

Part 9 of 19

Pause

That's sitting 1 of 2 done

Stretch, get a drink, look out of the window. There is no timer and nothing is counting down — your place is saved, so you can come back in five minutes or tomorrow.

Stop here for now
10

Learning cycle

Part 10 of 19

Learning cycle 2 of 2

How an ecosystem holds together

A short piece of teaching, then a check to make sure it has landed.

11

Explore the idea

Part 11 of 19

Learn

The nutrient cycle

Nutrients move between three stores: soil, biomass and litter. In a rainforest, warmth and moisture make decomposition so rapid that most nutrients sit in the biomass and the soil is thin — which is why cleared rainforest soil is exhausted within a few years. In a coniferous forest, cold slows decay, so the litter store is large. Knowing which store dominates explains what happens when the vegetation is removed.

12

Explore the idea

Part 12 of 19

Learn

When a link breaks

Food webs make ecosystems interdependent. Removing a top predator can let herbivore numbers rise and strip the vegetation, which then increases soil erosion. Draining a wetland removes the habitat of species that pollinate nearby crops. Because energy is lost at every step in the web, the number of top predators an ecosystem can support is always small — so they are usually the first species lost.

13

Quick check

Part 13 of 19

Quick check

In a rainforest, most nutrients are stored in the…

14

Quick check

Part 14 of 19

Quick check

Removing a top predator often leads to…

15

Common mix-ups

Part 15 of 19

Common mix-ups

Things people often get wrong

  • Rainforest soil is rich because plants grow so well — most nutrients are in the plants; the soil itself is thin.
  • Deserts are always hot — cold deserts such as the Gobi are defined by low rainfall, not high temperature.
  • Biomes have hard borders — they blend gradually and shift as climate changes.
16

Challenge round

Part 16 of 19

Game · Sort it

Which of these are true?

Drag each card into the right column. Tap a card first if dragging is fiddly.

True

Not true

17

Challenge round

Part 17 of 19

Game · Fill the gaps

Finish the sentences

Choose the word that belongs in each gap.

Knowing which store dominates explains what happens when the ____ is removed.

18

Mastery quiz

Part 18 of 19

Marked quiz

End of lesson quiz: Biomes, vegetation belts and ecosystems

6 questions, marked with the reasoning shown. No timer.

  1. 1. Which biome lies over permanently frozen ground?

  2. 2. Hot deserts are typically found near…

  3. 3. Cactus spines instead of leaves reduce…

  4. 4. Cold slows decomposition, so coniferous forests have a large…

  5. 5. Energy is lost at each step of a food web, so there are always few…

  6. 6. Climbing a tall mountain shows vegetation belts change with…

19

Lesson round-up

Part 19 of 19

Lesson round-up

Ready when you are

Quiz score

Not sat

Games

Not played

Points this lesson

0

Best run

0 in a row

Luna: 0 out of 4 on the practice checks. Only if you feel up to it — one more?

Ask Luna

Do the work

Your written work for this lesson

This is the part you'd do in your book at school. Pick the pieces below, write here or on paper, and photograph anything you draw or work out.

Case study

Flooding on the River Calder

The town of Harbrook sits where a steep valley opens onto a flat floodplain. In December 2015, 120 mm of rain fell in 36 hours onto ground that was already saturated. The river rose 2.4 m in five hours, and 380 homes and 54 businesses flooded. Two roads and the railway closed for eleven days.

Geographers pointed to physical causes — steep slopes, impermeable rock, heavy rainfall — and human causes: moorland drained upstream, new housing built on the floodplain, and drains designed for smaller storms.

Since then the town has planted 40 hectares of woodland upstream, built leaky dams in small streams, and raised flood walls to 1.8 m. In the storm of 2020 the peak river level was 0.3 m lower and 40 homes flooded, not 380.

Written for Good Learning Co.

Reading questions

  1. List two physical and two human causes of the 2015 flood.
  2. Explain how planting woodland upstream lowers the river's peak level.
  3. Using the figures, judge how successful the scheme has been. Quote data in your answer.

  • Case study notes

    Writing

    Write the place, the facts and the figures from this lesson so you can revise them later.

    Half a page

  • Explain answer

    Writing

    Answer in full sentences, giving causes and effects. Use one figure or place name as evidence.

    8–10 sentences

  • Map or sketch

    Diagram

    Draw the map, cross-section or field sketch with a key, title and labels, then photograph it.

    1 map with a key

  • Data work

    Working out

    Plot your figures as a graph on paper and write one sentence about the pattern.

    1 graph + 1 sentence

Saved as you type.

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    Understand the key processes in biology relating to biomes, vegetation belts and ecosystems

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