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Over time, many of Earth's biomes have been impacted by human activity, and these changes began to happen almost as soon as humans were around. For instance, hunting by early humans is thought to have contributed to the extinction of some megafauna, and the controlled burning of forests dramatically altered landscapes as long as 12,000 years ago.
- Global Primary Forest Loss Remained High. By Mikaela Weisse. Despite international efforts, the loss of tropical primary forests persisted over the past decade.
- New Technologies Made It Easier to Monitor Forests… By Rod Taylor. Innovations in remote sensing and cloud computing have made high-resolution global geospatial data available in user-friendly formats at low cost.
- but Biodiversity Monitoring Technology Lagged Behind. By Laura Vary. Common and beloved species have been disappearing at 100 times the natural background rate, with massive decreases in species ranging from roadside insects to songbirds to lemurs.
- Climate Change Battered Forest Ecosystems. By Fred Stolle. Forests are a critical buffer against climate change, absorbing one-third of the carbon we emit every year, maintaining stable rainfall patterns and moderating extreme temperatures.
Climate change is already now altering biomes, adversely affecting terrestrial and marine ecosystems. [2][3] Climate change represents long-term changes in temperature and average weather patterns. [4][5] This leads to a substantial increase in both the frequency and the intensity of extreme weather events. [6]
- Tropical Worlds. Leaf Cutter Ants. Ant fungus (Leucoagaricus) and leaf cutter ants (Atta cephalotes), Costa Rica. Leucoagaricus is a fungus that employs leaf cutter ants to collect the leaves on which it feeds.
- Water Worlds. Water Lilies. A wet season lake in the Pantanal, Brazil, totally covered by the pads of the Giant Water Lily, Victoria sp. | Credit: BBC.
- Seasonal Worlds. Frostweed. When the first freezing nights of winter arrive, water inside some plants, like this Frostweed, Verbesina virginica, freezes, bursting the stem and growing out as ice sculptures. |
- Desert Worlds. Saguaro Cacti. A rare snow fall amongst the saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea). Sonoran desert, Arizona. | Credit: BBC.
World of Change: Ice Loss in Glacier National Park. Shrinking since at least the early 1900s, the ice cover in Glacier National Park is expected to keep declining until only insignificant lumps remain. These images show changes to the park's ice and surrounding landscape since 1984. Land Snow and Ice Remote Sensing
Aug 9, 2021 · But climate change and periodic warming are leading to species decline, permafrost melt, and increased fires—all effects that could drastically change the world’s carbon balance. In a 2015 study, a group of authors led by S. Gauthier explored the value and future of the boreal forest. The boreal forest spreads across parts of Canada, Russia ...
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Sep 1, 2001 · Such changes can lead to dramatic shifts in biome type, such as the replacement of forests by shrubs or grassland. Similarly, agricultural land use and irrigation in the western Great Plains has been associated with increased cloudiness and precipitation in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado (Chase et al. 1999).
