Savannas: Type Of Grassland Ecosystem

Ecosystem Lab Presentation – Savannas
The biome I will be presenting on is a savanna, also spelled savannah. Savannas are a type of grassland ecosystem. Savannas house rolling grassland scattered with shrubs and isolated trees. Savannas can be found between a tropical rainforest and desert biome. Inhabitants of the savanna are very diverse and abundant. Some of the wildlife that makes the savanna their home are lions, giraffes, elephants, and zebras just to name a few. There are also various types of reptiles in the savanna. Two of these are the Black Mamba, which is a highly poisonous snake, and the Nile Crocodile, which is also known as the Kenyan Crocodile and Madagascar Crocodile, and as its name suggests, a crocodile, which is
The lack of water does not allow the plants and trees to grow tall as in some places. Grasses grow quickly in the wet season and turn brown in the dry months to conserve water. Grasses also stay close to the ground due to the frequent fires and grazing in the climate.2 Some examples of vegetation include shrubs, wild grasses, acacia trees, and baobab trees. The way the animals graze can actually determine the number of woody plants and grasses in the savanna.
The decomposers in the savanna include the typical list - fungi, different types of small bugs, worms, bacteria, and termites. Termites are one of the main decomposers in the savanna. It decomposes 90% of the grass biomass in the savanna. A natural decomposer is fire, which I will discuss more in the next section on the environment. This environment can be a harsh one due to frequent fires, intense heat and draught. Most of the fires in the savanna are caused by lightning strikes. Humans are now of course the greatest cause in savanna fires. The following excerpt from the Encyclopedia Britannica website lists some of the reasons for humans to set fires in the
In Australia humans have been lighting fires in savanna regions for at least 50,000 years. These fires have traditionally been lit for many reasons: to keep the country open and easily crossed; to reveal and kill small, edible animals such as lizards, turtles, and rodents; to create areas that later will develop a cover of fresh, green grass, which will attract wallabies and other game; and to encourage plants that produce edible tubers. Fires early in the dry season are less hot and destructive than fires that occur later in the season. They are sometimes employed to provide a firebreak around patches of fire-sensitive rainforest that inhabitants may want to protect for religious or utilitarian reasons. However, early fires may have ecological drawbacks, especially in areas intended for grazing. In these areas fires that burn late in the dry season are less detrimental to new grass