CONTENTS What is a habitat 4 The science of habitats 6 Working scientifically 7 Wildlife habitats 8 Adaptations 10 Moving in 12 Blending in 14 Extreme habitats 16 Keystone species 18 How trees help 20 Balancing the numbers 22 Building the environment 24 Climate change 26 Reading your results 28 Glossary 30 Books and websites 31 Index 32 Worlds in bold can be found in the glossary on page 30 A note about measurements Measurements are given in U S form with metric in parentheses The metric conversion is rounded to make it easier to measure
WHAT IS A HABITAT A habitat is the natural home of an animal plant or other living thing Each type or species of living thing has its own habitat For example the sand cat is a desert animal Its natural habitat is sandy or rocky deserts in North Africa and parts of Asia Living things are adapted to their habitats The sand cat has fur on the soles of its feet to help it walk over hot sand Its fur also keeps it warm at night when deserts can be cold Its big ears and sharp eyesight help it find small prey in the dark A sand cat prowls around its natural habitat a sandy desert THE RIGHT HABITAT Each living thing or organism needs to be in the right habitat to survive Put the sand cat in the North Atlantic Ocean and it wouldn’t be happy It wouldn’t be able to swim for long or hold its breath underwater to go hunting Its thick fur would get wet and become heavy and it would quickly get too cold On the other hand a humpback whale is adapted to life in the ocean with its flippers rubbery skin and a blowhole on its head for breathing But in the desert it wouldn’t survive a day It would overheat and be unable to move This means that if habitats change or get damaged living things can struggle to survive For example forest creatures such as monkeys can die if their forest habitat is cut down A humpback whale roams its home the open ocean 4
HABITATS AND BIOMES A habitat can be big like a desert or small like a pond or an old hollow log On a large scale the Earth’s surface can be divided into several main habitat types called biomes Each biome also contains many smaller habitats Arctic Ocean Atlantic Ocean Pacific Ocean Indian Ocean world biomes Southern Ocean tropical rainforest northern forest deciduous forest tundra tropical savanna temperate grassland Mediterranean vegetation desert seas and oceans ice sheet and polar desert mountains ECOSYSTEMS An ecosystem means a habitat and all the things living in it Besides needing the right habitat living things depend on other organisms in their ecosystem For example a sand cat needs desert rodents and lizards to feed on In turn these animals need to eat desert plants or insects Sand cats hunt and eat venomous snakes 5
