Alternative site for the Global ecosystem typology with additional information for ecosystem profiles and indicative maps.
This site is maintained by jrfep
The Terrestrial realm includes all dry land, its vegetation cover, proximate atmosphere and substrate (soils, rocks) to the rooting depth of plants, and associated animals and microbes.
Water and nutrients are the principal resource drivers, with energy, oxygen and carbon rarely limiting ([Table 3]). Temperature and its variability on interannual, seasonal and diurnal time scales, is a major ambient environmental driver, with ecosystem function and structure responding to global latitudinal and altitudinal climatic gradients. Fire is a major ecosystem driver, essentially unique to the terrestrial realm, although it may occur rarely in the subterranean realm. Gradients in these key resources, ambient environmental factors and disturbance regimes influence biotic interactions, with the strength of competition, predation and pathogenicity varying greatly across the realm. Human activity is a key driver through structural manipulations associated with land use, but also through movement of biota and anthropogenic climate change. The complexity of trophic webs is similarly variable, with vegetation a key feature in the expression of different ecosystem types within the realm.