Chaparral Biome

     Do you want to live somewhere with constant weather, cool climate, and lush trees? Then you probably don't want to live in a chaparral biome. Does it look attractive? 

Chaparral Biome

Link: http://education-portal.com/cimages/multimages/16/Chaparral_California.JPG

     The chaparral biome is a shrubland, found mostly in California, parts of Mexico, and various parts in the Eurasia continent. 

Map of chaparral biome areas (highlighted in green)

Link: http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/images/chaparral_location_map001.gif

     Some abiotic features (physical features) of a chaparral include mild winters, hot and dry summers, infrequent fires, poor soil quality (lacking in nutrients), lots of rocks, and lots of sunlight. Some biotic features (living features, such as plants and animals) include the blue oak, manzanita (a kind of shrub), fairy duster (also a kind of shrub), black-tailed jack rabbits, cactus wrens, grey foxes, mountain lions, desert foxes, spotted skunks, and french brooms (a kind of shrub, not a broom.) For more kinds of abiotic and biotic factors, click here.

Protea plant in the biome

Link: http://www.ri.net/schools/West_Warwick/manateeproject/chaparral/Protea.gif   

The producers of the biome are the plants. Some producers include (maybe already have been said above) blue oaks, coyote brush, common sagebrush, fairy duster, french broom, king protea, lebanon cedar, manzanita, mountain mahogany, saltmarsh bird's beak, olive tree, and torrey pine. 

The consumers, on the other hand, are the animals in the biome. The consumers include aardwolf, black-tailed jack rabbit, cactus wren, golden jackal, grey fox, isand grey fox, puma, san joachin kit fox, spotted skunk, and wild goats. 

There aren't as many decomposers as there are producers and consumers, since fires wipe out everything once in a while, but some decomposers are lichen, vultures, mice, earthworms, and millipedes. Decomposers break down the dead animals and plants. 

Humans affect the chaparral biome greatly by going in and building structures such as industries and factories. The biome is changed to suit human needs, but in turn, the organisms are being threatened and endangered. The fires that some organisms need to survive are stopped by the humans, which leaves the organisms with no way to reproduce and pass on their genes. 

During the winter, the chaparral climate is mild and moist, but not very rainy. During the summer, contrary to the winter, it is hot and dry. Temperature ranges from 30° to 100° F year round. The chaparral biome only gets around 10-17 inches of rain the whole year, and most of it is from the winter. The plants survive if they have hard or hairy leaves so that they can collect moisture to survive. Because of the hot and dry weather, there are occasionally fires. Many plants are adapted to the fires, and will sprout new plants after a fire to continue living. For more information on climate, click here.

Chaparral during rainy season

Link: http://dpexperience.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/CA-Chaparral-Rain-3.jpg

Climate graph of chaparral

Link: http://images.climate-data.org/location/231614/climate-graph.png

Since fires are frequent in the chaparral, many plants and animals have adapted to this event quite nicely. The blue oak tree developed hard tree bark to lessen the severity of the burns from wildfires, and the olive tree has small leaves with protective coating to prevent the evaporation of moisture and to conserve water. The golden jackal has thick fur to insulate it from the cooler chaparral winters, and the island grey fox is smaller than the usual foxes, allowing it to live off of less land and resources.

Black-tailed jackrabbit

Link: http://www.tringa.org/images/9913500129_Black-tailed_Jackrabbit_10-20-2007_2.jpg

There are also some symbiotic relationships in the chaparral. The blue oak tree and common sage brush both produce for other animals, but neither one is dominant, and they don't overpower one another. The red winged blackbird eats the dropped seeds of a torrey pine, but does not harm or benefit the pine in any other way.