Dates Berlin: 15 - 22 March 2010 Hamburg 30 March - 5 April 2010 Biomes Temperate Grasslands and Lakes and Ponds
Temperate Grasslands: Those found in North America are called Prairies and those in South America are known as Pampas. South Africa has Savanna and veldt while Eurasia has the Steppes. The Pampas of southern hemisphere has moist, tropical air with a lot of rain. The Steppes have cold and dry climate due to the Himalayas blocking warm moist air from the Indian Ocean causing little rain. Short grass often grows there and winters are cold and windy. The grasslands are of different types on every continent except Antarctica and they have a large latitude range i.e. from 55 degrees north to 30 degrees south. The prairies are moist and humid. The type of grass that grows there is both tall and short. Summers are warm and humid while winters are cold. The mean temperature in Jan is 20 degrees F, and 70 degrees F in July. The annual precipitation is 10-30 inches. The veldt in South Africa is just like Savanna except in the southern Hemisphere. It has hot, wet season and later cooler dry season which lasts for some months. The article also mentions some examples of plants and animals that can be found in Temperate Grasslands. The common plants are Coneflowers, Clover and Crazy weed while some animals are Coyotes and Canadian Geese. (Germany and Turkey in our trip)
Lakes and Ponds: A lake is any water filled depression that is cut off from an inflow of ocean water. This includes anything from a puddle to the Great Lakes. Lakes and ponds are often differentiated based on how the water coulomb is mixed. Lakes are bodies of water that are primarily mixed by the wind; ponds on the other hand, are mixed by temperature change. Lakes account for only 0.009% of the water on earth. Lakes are one of the most varied aquatic environments on earth. They can differ in their formation, size and depth. In fact, no to lakes are identical in environmental condition or inhabiting organisms
Lakes are often compared in terms of age, most of which are only 10,000-20,000 years old. A few lakes, such as Lake Baikal, are possibly as old as 75 million years. Eventually all lakes fill with sediment becoming marshes or swamps until eventually they become whatever the terrestrial biome is. Many lakes mix twice a year as temperature changes cause the top layer of water to become more or less dense. Some lakes mix more often. If they are shallow enough, they can be mixed completely by the wind. If they really deep, the bottom most layer never mixes.
Lakes can be classified based on varying amounts of nutrients. Oligotrophic lakes have very few nutrients and the water is often clear. An oligotrophic lake contains few phytoplankters, and has little diversity. Mesotrophic lakes have enough nutrients, dissolved gasses and depth to support a high diversity of animals. Eutrophic lakes are very nutrient rich and the water is often cloudy due to a high abundance of phytoplankters. These lakes are often shallow due to a high accumulation of sediment and a large amount of decay which reduces the amount of oxygen in the water. These factors cause Entropic lakes to support a large number of organisms with little diversity. Finally, the fourth lake classification is dystrophic. A dystrophic lake is black or brown due to a high concentration of humic or tannic acid caused by an accumulation of peat. These lakes have very acidic water which is low in carbohydrates and are host to acid tolerant aquatic plants.
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