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
THE SCIENCE OF HABITATS The word science means knowledge Throughout history humans have experimented with all kinds of things in order to learn more about the world That’s partly because we have a natural urge to find things out Scientists use viewers to observe plants and animals in a river habitat Studying and understanding habitats is especially important Many living things are endangered or at risk of dying out and becoming extinct That’s partly because of changes humans have made to the world such as clearing wild forests for cities or farmland Climate change affects habitats It can make them warmer colder wetter or drier than they should be This can cause problems for the organisms that live there The more scientists know about how processes such as climate change work the more we can help endangered animals to survive and protect and preserve natural surroundings HUMAN HABITAT Humans are living things too and the whole world is our ecosystem We depend on other living things for our survival Protecting habitats and ecosystems helps all living things including us This forest is being cut down to make room for farmland 6 Some types of coral struggle to survive in oceans warmed by climate change
WORKING SCIENTIFICALLY In this book you’ll find a range of investigations or experiments that will help you discover how habitats and ecosystems work To do experiments scientists use careful logical methods to make sure they get reliable results The experiments and investigations in this book use four key scientific methods along with an easy acronym to help you remember them ATOM ASK What do you want to find out Asking questions is a really important part of science Scientists think about what questions they have and how to find answers OBSERVE Key things to look out for Scientists watch their experiments closely to see what is happening WHAT NEXT After each experiment the What Next section gives you ideas for more activities and experiments or ways to display your results TEST Setting up an experiment that will test ideas and answer questions Scientists then design experiments to answer their questions A test works best if you only test for one thing at a time MEASURE Measuring and recording results such as temperatures sizes or amounts of time Making accurate measurements and recording the results shows what the experiment has revealed 7
