Virginia has two biomes, the Atlantic Coastline Plain and the Eastern Deciduous Forest.

Our planet has many, many more.

So, what exactly is a biome?

And how is it different from an ecosystem?

These are important questions, and we're looking for answers, and we're getting some help from our friends at the Virginia Living Museum in Newport News.

We're talking biomes today on "Spotlight Earth."

(vibrant music) And we'll be back here in a bit, but let's kick things off in the studio with Hales.

Thanks, Ellen.

That's a really pretty spot, one of so many unique and astonishing places that make up our world.

That's the beauty of planet Earth.

There are so many different types of landforms, aquatic areas, plants and animals that make each part of the world so distinctive.

Let's start with some working definitions.

A biome is a large area that is made up of similar communities of living things and shares a similar climate.

Climate is the condition of the atmosphere in an area over long periods of time.

We are talking hundreds or thousands of years.

Climate is unlike weather, which changes constantly.

Temperature range and the amount of precipitation are the main things that determine what type of biome is present.

Soil type and the amount of light are other big determiners.

Our planet has 10 different terrestrial biomes and three different aquatic biomes.

Terrestrial means it is found only on land and aquatic means found only in the water.

A temperate location will have more of a mild climate with changes in seasons, whereas a tropical location will have a warm and humid climate.

A Savanna is dry and mostly grasslands with few trees.

A desert can be warm or cold with little precipitation and sparse plant life.

The tundra is cold and stays frozen for most of the year, and similar to a desert, it is dry and has little vegetation.

The biomes in the far north and far south might look like they have a lot of water because they're covered in snow.

But when water is frozen, neither plants nor animals can use it, so these cold biomes are basically snow deserts.

Boreal forests are drier than deciduous forests and mostly found in cooler areas, experiencing short, cool summers.

We usually call the type of tree in boreal forests pine trees, and they are conifers or cone-bearing.

The deciduous forests have mostly trees that lose their leaves in the winter to slow down photosynthesis, whereas tropical forests keep their leaves all year round.

Lastly, we have the chaparral biome, which is unique in that it is dry and dependent on fires for its vegetation to reproduce.

Our aquatic ecosystems are a little simpler and are classified based on salinity levels and depth.

Fresh waters like lakes and rivers are not salty.

The oceans of the world are salty, but the salinity varies widely with latitude and the input of rivers.

Freshwater rivers and rain wash the minerals that make the ocean salty off the land and into the oceans.

The coastal areas are those near the coastlines of different continents.

So now that we have described Earth's different biomes, let's learn more about Virginia's biomes with Ellen at the Virginia Living Museum.

Yep, we're studying Virginia's biomes today.

(gentle music) And this is the perfect place to do that.

We are joined today by Rachel Riesbeck, the Education Director at the Virginia Living Museum.

Thank you so much for joining us today, Rachel.

Yeah, no problem.

So tell us a little bit about the Virginia Living Museum.

Yeah, so the Virginia Living Museum is a really unique space that really focuses on all of Virginia's natural resources.

We have over 250 species of plants and animals.

You can explore Virginia's unique geology and even look at the night sky in our planetarium.

We really wanna connect our visitors to how they can help protect all of our wild spaces.

What biomes are represented here in the Virginia Living Museum?

Because we are featuring all of Virginia's resources, we actually have several biomes that you can see right here.

One of those is our aquatic biomes.

So we have both freshwater and marine aquatic biomes, and we really get to see those in our Coastal Plain's exhibit, where we're featuring our Chesapeake Bay estuary and coastal Atlantic Ocean.

And then the remainder of the museum focuses on our forest biome.

We are located somewhere in our temperate region, so we're gonna see temperate forest biomes and all the different plants and animals that thrive there.

Being right here in kind of the mid-latitude regions, on the eastern side of the United States, we have a deciduous forest biome.

So we see big masses of cold and warm air, which gives us four distinct seasons.

And so that allows us to see lots of different variety of species of plants and animals.

And what about the aquatic biome?

So we are really uniquely positioned to be right next to the Atlantic Ocean, and we have marine aquatic biomes in that coastal Atlantic Ocean, as well as a really large Chesapeake Bay estuary.

And of course, we're also home to lots of rivers, streams, ponds, lakes, and swamps that make up our freshwater biomes.

So these are both gonna be different.

So our marine biome is really gonna focus on salinity or how much salt is in the water.

So it's gonna have a higher salt content, whereas our freshwater biomes is not gonna have any salt present.

In both of our freshwater and marine aquatic biomes, there are living things in the water, just like on land, and these living things like animals and plant, they're going to eventually die, sink to the bottom, and start decomposing.

So there's their own ecosystem of species that will break down and bring all those nutrients back into the soil, or the substrate that's under the water, as well as in the water for everything to use again to start that cycle all over again.

Are there things that we can do within our biome to help make it thrive?

Yes, we wanna make sure that we are both restoring and protecting all of these biomes.

So we can restore by making sure that we plant native species.

So that way, we can bring in other native animals that are supported by those habitats, and we can also protect those spaces.

It's really important to protect all of our wild spaces so that plants and animals have a healthy place to live.

So we wanna keep both the land and the water clean by keeping out pollutants and making sure they have space in order to grow and survive.

Thank you so much for joining us today, Rachel.

Thanks for having me.

Thanks to our host here at the Virginia Living Museum.

As we have learned, it's important to protect the biomes and ecosystems that we live in in order to enjoy places just like this one.

Thanks for watching "Spotlight Earth."

(gentle music)