What are the different types of natural vegetation?
- Tropical Evergreen Rain Forests.
- Deciduous or Monsoon Type of Forests.
- Dry Deciduous Forests.
- Mountain Forests.
- Tidal or Mangrove Forests.
- Semi-Desert and Desert Vegetation.
What do you mean by natural vegetation?
The natural vegetation of a place refers to the plants naturally growing there without human interference or aid and has been left undisturbed for a long time. It is also termed virgin vegetation. Flora is used for defining the natural vegetation of a particular place.
How does natural vegetation influence the climate?
Vegetation can affect climate and weather patterns due to the release of water vapor during photosynthesis. The release of vapor into the air alters the surface energy fluxes and leads to potential cloud formation. Clouds alter the amount of sunlight, or radiation, that can reach the Earth, affecting the Earth’s energy balance, and in some ...
What are the 4 types of vegetation?
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.
What are the natural vegetation?
Natural vegetation refers to a plant community, which has grown naturally without human aid and has been left undisturbed by humans for a long time. This is termed as a virgin vegetation. Thus, cultivated crops and fruits, orchards form part of vegetation but not natural vegetation.
What is vegetation in geography in simple words?
Vegetation may be defined as the patchwork of plant species arrayed across the landscape. It includes a variety of life forms such as trees, shrubs, grasses, forbs, and non-vascular plants like mosses.
What is the best definition of vegetation?
Definition of vegetation 1 : plant life or total plant cover (as of an area) 2 : the act or process of vegetating. 3 : inert existence. 4 : an abnormal growth upon a body part fibrin vegetations on the mitral valve.
Why is natural vegetation important?
Vegetation provides habitat to wildlife and ecosystem services such as food and fuel and many other products to humans. Vegetation defines landscapes in people's minds, and is an essential component of any biome or environment.
What is vegetation and examples?
Vegetation is defined as growing plants, or a life without physical, mental or social activity. All the plants in the rain forest are an example of vegetation. A person who is brain dead is an example of someone who lives in a state of vegetation. noun.
What is soil and vegetation?
Soils and vegetation have a reciprocal relationship. Fertile soil encourages plant growth by providing plants with nutrients, acting as a water holding tank, and serving as the substrate to which plants anchor their roots.
What is natural vegetation 8th?
It refers to plant vegetation that has grown on its own without any human aid. They have been left undisturbed by the humans for a long time. It is a community of living trees and organisms associated with it. It covers a considerable area.
What is the role of vegetation?
Vegetation converts solar energy into biomass and forms the base of all food chains. Vegetation influences the energy balance at the earth's surface and within the atmospheric boundary layer, often mitigating extremes of local climate. Vegetation releases oxygen and sequesters carbon.
Why is vegetation important to geographers?
Vegetation is an important and highly visible element of the natural and cultural environment. To the trained eye, vegetation offers a rapid means of determining habitat suitability for various human endeavors.
What is the relationship between vegetation and climate?
Vegetation has significant relationships with climate and water, soils, landforms, other plants, animals, and humans. Vegetation has such a close relationship with climate that geographers often proclaim that vegetation is the mirror of climate.
How does vegetation respond to temperature?
Vegetation responds to temperature and moisture conditions. As a rule, the higher the temperature, the faster the rate of plant growth. Tropical rainforest trees may grow to maturity in as little as 25 years, while those in the northern coniferous forest may need 75 years or more. Plant metabolism slows greatly and significant tree growth stops when temperatures drop below 50 degrees F (10 degrees C). Many tropical plants cannot survive temperatures below freezing. Most plants depend upon seasonal rainfall, although some can draw upon groundwater supplies. In mid-latitude regions, trees require a minimum of about 20 in (50 cm) of rainfall per year. Some tree species require wetlands while others are adapted to life in drier terrain. The cypress tree, for example, is hygrophytic (water-loving) and grows in swampy parts of the southeastern United States. Oak, maple, and ash trees, however, prefer drier conditions.
Why do geographers study vegetation?
One way that geographers study vegetation is to investigate environmental relationships. Vegetation has significant relationships with climate and water, soils, landforms, other plants, animals, and humans.
Where are softwoods found?
Mostly softwoods, they are found in a wide range of latitudes where they tolerate poor soils and cold temperatures well. Another way that geographers classify vegetation is to look at biomes or plant associations. We have identified four major biomes: forests, tropical grasslands , mid-latitude grasslands, and deserts.
What is the role of soil in plants?
Plants grow in soil. Soils must contain the nutrients and moisture conditions that plants need in order to survive. Unlike cultivated plants, which are “soil robbers” that demand many nutrients from the soil, natural vegetation is less demanding. Nevertheless, soil conditions affect vegetation patterns.
What animals eat plants?
Birds eat and spread seeds; so do fruit-eating animals. Herbivorous animals eat plants; overgrazing can have hurt plant life. Humans, of course, cultivate plants that they have domesticated. They modify the natural environment and plow the soil to do this, killing or removing weeds that compete with their crops.
What is natural vegetation?
Define Natural Vegetation: A plant population that has evolved naturally without the assistance of humans is referred to as natural vegetation. For a long period of time, they have also been unaffected by humans. This is what we refer to as virgin vegetation. Cultivated fruits and crops, as well as orchards, are considered vegetation, ...
Where are tropical forests located?
They are mostly located in the northeastern states of Assam, Meghalaya, the Western Ghats, Nagaland, the Himalayan Tarai zones, the Andaman Islands and Arunachal Pradesh.
What are the benefits of forest?
Below given points state the Conservation of natural vegetation and wildlife: 1 Forests provide us with oxygen and precipitation. 2 Soil erosion is prevented by forests. 3 Pollination and seed dispersal are both based on animals and birds for plants. 4 Forests supply us with a variety of medicines. 5 In industries, a variety of forest products are being used as raw resources. 6 They are a constant in the natural world. 7 These wildlife communities help to preserve ecological balance. 8 Some animals are extinct, and others are on the verge of becoming extinct. 9 Endangered animals ought to be safeguarded. 10 Wildlife has the same right to exist on this planet as humans.
What are the plants in the Indian wild date zone?
This vegetation zone is home to thorny trees, acacia, and Babul. The Indian wild date is commonly found in this region. They have dense flesh and broad roots. Plants in this area hold water in their stems to help them survive the drought. Gujarat, Punjab, and Rajasthan all have this kind of vegetation. 5.
How does wildlife affect the environment?
Ans. Wildlife contributes to the ecological balance of the environment. Carnivore extinction results in a rise in the number of herbivores, which has an effect on forest vegetation. As a result of a lack of resources in the forest, they migrate to agricultural land and kill the crops.
What are the species that live in the savanna?
It does have a multilayered structure due to the abundance of vegetation among all kinds – shrubs, trees, and creepers. Elephants, monkeys, and lemurs are among the species that can be found in these regions.
What are some examples of animals that have adapted to suburban life?
Some species, on the other hand, have adapted to suburban life. Domesticated cats, mice, dogs, dogs, and rats are examples of this. Few religions consider such species to be sacred, and environmental activists have protested against the destruction of wildlife for human benefit or entertainment in recent eras.
Why is vegetation important to the biosphere?
Vegetation plays many important roles in the biosphere. One of the vegetation’s most important functions is its regulation of the flow of many biogeochemical cycles. Among these are the water cycle, the carbon cycle, and the nitrogen cycle. Vegetation is also crucial to energy balances both at the local and global levels. The maintenance of these cycles is of great importance for both global vegetation patterns and climate.
What is grassland?
Grasslands are vast and level regions with grass as the prevailing kind of vegetation. All of the Earth’s continents, save for Antarctica, have grasslands. Grasslands vary according to the climate of the region they are found in.
How to determine climate zone?
A climate zone is based on the climate conditions of a certain region. This includes a region’s season, temperature, amount of precipitation, type of precipitation, and humidity. The same major factors that determine a region’s climate also determine its climate zone. The vegetation present in a region, as well as its condition and state, is reflective of the area’s climate zone. It is possible to determine the climate zone of a specific area by observing its vegetation, regardless of if the area is experiencing unusual weather at the time. As vegetation is determined by a region’s climate, the type of vegetation that grows in a region can also be used to define its climate zone.
How are climate zones classified?
The world’s climate zones are most commonly classified using the Koppen classification system. In this system, regions are sorted into climate zones according to temperature, amount of precipitation, and when precipitation happens over a year. The Koppen classification system classifies the world’s climate zones into five major climate groups. Each group is assigned a capital letter from A to E and further subdivided into subcategories. A few examples of the subgroups include forest (f), monsoon (m), and wet/dry types (w).
What are the characteristics of a biome?
Organisms that belong to one biome share some characteristics with other organisms living in the same or similar biomes in different parts of the world. This is because the conditions of the environments they live in pose the same evolutionary advantages and challenges, thus these organisms have adapted in similar ways throughout millennia. One example of this is the different species of cactus that can be found in the desert biomes of different continents. Although these cacti have grown and adapted in entirely different parts of the globe, they still share some adaptations that allow them to live in harsh desert environments.
What is climate in science?
In general, climate is regarded to be the predominant atmospheric conditions in a certain area. The aptest modern definitions of climate refer to it as being made up of the total experience of weather and atmospheric conditions across a number of years in a specific region. Climate is not only the “average weather” experienced in an area. Climate includes both the normal levels of climatic elements at different times and the full range of its variability and its extremes. Climate is time-dependent and the specific year must be noted when quoting climactic values or indexes. One year’s climate can be entirely different from another. In the same way, the climate of decades and centuries have been found to differ in smaller, yet at times still significant, amounts.
What are the elements of climate?
The elements of climate and natural vegetation include solar radiation, temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind speed and direction, humidity, and precipitation.
Tropical Evergreen and Semi-Evergreen Forests
These forests are mainly found in the western slope of the Western Ghats, the Andaman and Nicobar islands and hills of north-east India.
Tropical Deciduous forests
These are the typical monsoon forests with teak ( Tectona grandis) and sal ( Shorea robusta) as the dominant species. They form natural vegetation all over the country where average rainfall ranges between 70 – 200 cm. On the basis of the availability of water, these forests are further classified into moist and dry deciduous forests.
Tropical Thorn Forests
These forests are found in the regions where the average annual rainfall is less than 50 cm. These forests are found in semi-arid regions of south-west Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. The plants remain leafless for most of the year.
Montane Forests
With the increasing altitude, the decrease in temperature leads to corresponding changes in the vegetation. Mountain forests have been classified into two types – the northern mountain forests and the southern mountain forests.
Littoral and Swamp Forests
Our country has a rich variety of wetland habitats and about 70% are under paddy cultivation. India’s wetlands have been classified into eight groups:
Wildlife of India
India is rich in its flora as well as fauna. India has about 90,000 animal species and approximately 2,000 species of birds which constitute 13% of the world’s total. 2,546 species of fish are found in India which is nearly 12% of the world’s stock.
Biosphere Reserves
Biosphere reserves are areas of terrestrial and coastal ecosystems which are internationally recognised within the framework of UNESCO’s “Man and Biosphere (MAB) Programme”.