Biome: evolution of a crucial ecological and biogeographical concept

What is it about?

Biome is a large-scale biotic community and ecosystem, characteristic of (sub)continental to geographic scales. It is widely used in ecology and biogeography, and recently gained in importance because of the emerging global change issues. The concept of biome underwent a conceptual evolution punctuated by two major innovations: shifting focus from pure pattern description to understanding functionality, changing approach from observational to explanatory and, most importantly, from descriptive to predictive. A synthetic view of biome as a functional and evolutionary unit is emerging.

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