Search Tips

All research starts with a question (or 2, or 3, or 4...). What do you want to know about your topic? In this investigation, your task is to examine the relationships between the plants, animals, and climate of the different land biomes. You might consider the following to get you started:

• What plants are found in the biome?
• What animals, insects, and organisms live in the biome?
• What is the climate like?
• Where is the biome located?
• What adaptations (changes) have the living things in the biome made over time?
• Why were these adaptations (changes) necessary?
• How does energy cycle through the biome?
• How do the plants and animals depend upon each other?
• Is it important to have biodiversity (a variety of species) in a biome?
• What would happen if a species was removed from the biome?
• What are the threats to biomes?
• What can I do to protect a biome?

Google is a useful resource, but try out one of the search engines below. These engines cluster, or group, the results. This might help you think of new relationships, questions, or keywords about your topic.

Once you have an overview of your topic, you can start to think about effective ways to search for information. For this investigation, you are exploring relationships between the living things and the climate of biomes. As this guide does, you can break your search strategy into different strands using a variety of search terms.

1. Earth Sciences-ecology

• ecosystem (community, population, habitat)
• environment

2. Biomes-using the terms land or terrestrial in addition to biomes may eliminate some, but not all, references to aquatic biomes.

• deciduous forest (temperate, broadleaf)
• desert (shrubland, subtropical desert)
• grasslands (steppe, pampas, veldt, savanna, prairie, plains)
• taiga (boreal forest, coniferous, evergreen, needleleaf)
• tropical rain forest (temperate)
• tundra (alpine tundra, Arctic grassland)

3. Transitional biomes-Because the 6 biomes don't start or stop at an exact spot, scientists have identified several transitional terms. You may have to weed through different terminology and decide where these transitional biomes best fit. Terms you might see include:

• chapparal
• Mediterranean forest
• polar ice caps
• mountain

4. Biotic factors-living things in a biome

• flora (plants)
• fauna (mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, insects, fungi, bacteria, etc.)
• wildlife (all living things)

5. Abiotic factors-nonliving things in a biome

• climate (climatology, global warming, historical trends)
• temperature (weather data)
• precipitation (water vapor)
• geography (latitude, maps, satellite images)
• soil

6. Energy Cycles/Flow of Energy-energy moves through a biome by being transferred from one organism to another

• photosynthesis (plants, sun, carbon dioxide, oxygen, glucose, water, producers)
• water cycle (evaporation, condensation, precipitation, transpiration, respiration)
• carbon cycle (carbon dioxide-oxygen cycle, photosynthesis, respiration, decomposition)
• food cycle (food chain, food web, producers, consumers, decomposers, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores)

7. Biodiversity-the variety of life in a biome

• factors (biome size, terrain, latitude)
• species(population, threatened, endangered, extinct)
• threats (human, natural disasters, global warming)
• government involvment (agencies, national parks, laws)
• organizations (protection, local, state, national, global, action)

Need additional information? Try this Google Custom Search.

Don't forget about the public libraries in our area.

There are many resources available for biome research. I would recommend the following if you wish to expand your search beyond this libguide:

The following organizations and government agencies are involved in issues relating to biomes. You will find useful information in the form of journal articles, current news stories, webcams, satellite images, and blogs relating to the environment. Most of these sites have search features and special sections designed for students.