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Chapter 7
Climate and Biodiversity
Chapter Outline
CORE CASE STUDY: African Savanna
7.1 What Factors Influence Weather?
7.2 What Factors Influence Climate?
7.3 How Does Climate Affect the Nature and Location of Biomes?
SCIENCE FOCUS 7.1 Staying Alive in the Desert
SCIENCE FOCUS 7.2 Revisiting the Savanna: Elephants as a Keystone Species
TYING IT ALL TOGETHER Tropical African Savanna and Sustainability
Key Concepts
7.1 Key factors that influence weather are moving masses of warm and cold air, changes in atmospheric
pressure, and occasional shifts in major winds.
7.2 Key factors that influence an area’s climate are incoming solar energy, the earth’s rotation, global
patterns of air and water movement, gases in the atmosphere, and the earth’s surface features.
7.3 Desert, grassland, and forest biomes can be tropical, temperate, or cold depending on their climate and
location.
Key Questions and Case Studies

CORE CASE STUDY
African Savanna
In tropical areas, we find a type of grassland called a savanna. This biome typically contains scattered
trees and usually has warm temperatures year-round with alternating dry and wet seasons. Archeological
evidence indicates that our species emerged from African savannas. Today, vast areas of African savanna
have been plowed up and converted to cropland or used for grazing livestock. As a result, populations of
elephants, lions, and other animals that roamed the savannas for millions of years
have dwindled.
7.1 What Factors Influence Weather?

A. Weather is the set of physical conditions of the lower atmosphere, including temperature,
precipitation, humidity, wind speed, cloud cover, and other factors, in a given area over a period
of hours to days.
1. The most important factors in the weather in any area are atmospheric temperature and
precipitation.
2. Much of the weather we experience results from interactions between the leading edges of
moving masses of warm air and cold air, called a front.
3. An air mass with high atmospheric pressure is called a “high.”
4. An air mass with low atmospheric pressure is called a “low.”
B. Weather can have extremes
1. Tornadoes, or twisters, are swirling, funnel-shaped clouds that form over land.
a. Most tornadoes in the American Midwest occur in the spring and summer.
2. Tropical cyclones are spawned by the formation of low-pressure cells of air over warm
tropical seas.
3. Hurricanes are tropical cyclones that form in the Atlantic Ocean.
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4. Those forming in the Pacific Ocean usually are called typhoons.
7.2 What factors influence climate?
A. Weather is a local area’s short-term physical conditions such as temperature and precipitation.
B. Climate is the general pattern of atmospheric conditions in a given area over periods ranging from
at least three decades to thousands of years.
1. Average temperature and average precipitation are the two major factors that determine
climate of a region, together with the related factors of latitude and elevation.
2. Global winds and ocean currents distribute heat and precipitation unevenly between the
tropics and other parts of the world.
C. Global air circulation is affected by the uneven heating of the earth’s surface by solar energy,
seasonal changes in temperature and precipitation, rotation of the earth on its axis, and the
properties of air, water, and land.
1. Uneven heating of earth’s surface: the equator is heated more than the poles.
a. The input of solar energy in a given area, called insolation, varies with latitude.
2. Rotation of the earth on its axis results in the earth moving faster beneath air masses at the
equator and slower at the poles. Belts of prevailing winds are the result.
3. Properties of air, water, and land affect global air circulation. Water evaporation sets up
cyclical convection cells. These occur both vertically and from place to place in the
troposphere. The result is an irregular distribution of climates and patterns of vegetation from
pole to pole.
4. The fourth major climatic factor is the rotation of the earth on its axis. As the earth rotates to
the east, the equator spins faster than the regions to its north and south.
D. Ocean currents influence climate by distributing heat from place to place and mixing and
distributing nutrients.
1. Differences in water density and heat create ocean currents that are warm/cold.
2. Currents redistribute absorbed solar heat from one place to another, influence vegetation and
climate near coastal regions.
3. Currents also help mix ocean waters to distribute nutrients and dissolved oxygen needed for
aquatic organisms.
4. Winds and the earth’s rotation drive the currents.
E. Water vapor, carbon dioxide, and other gases influence climate by warming the lower atmosphere
and the earth’s surface.
1. These gasses (water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide) are known as
greenhouse gasses. They allow mostly visible light, some infrared radiation, and ultraviolet
radiation to pass through the troposphere. This natural warming is the greenhouse effect.
F. Interactions between land and oceans and disruptions of airflows by mountains and cities affect
local climates. Various topographic features can create local and regional microclimates.
1. One example of this is the rainshadow effect.
2. Bricks, asphalt, and other building materials create distinct microclimates in cities.
7.3 How does climate affect the nature and location of biomes?
A. Different climates lead to different communities of organisms, especially vegetation.
1. Average annual precipitation, temperature, and soil type are the most important factors in
producing tropical, temperate, or polar deserts, grasslands, and forests.
2. Scientists have divided the world into biomes—large terrestrial regions, each characterized
by a certain type of climate and dominant forms of plant life.
B. Deserts have little precipitation and little vegetation and are found in tropical, temperate, and
polar regions.
1. Tropical deserts are hot and dry most of the year with few plants, rocks, and sand.
2. Temperate deserts have high daytime temperatures in summer and low temperatures in
winter, with more rain than in tropical deserts.
3. Cold deserts have cold winters and warm summers, with low rainfall.
4. Desert ecosystems are vulnerable to disruption because they have slow plant growth, low
species diversity, slow nutrient cycling due to lack of humus, low bacterial activity in the
soils, and very little water.
SCIENCE FOCUS 7.1

Staying Alive in the Desert
Plants and animals have numerous adaptations to the harsh conditions in desert environments. These
tend to revolve around avoiding heat, and absorbing or retaining the maximum amount of water.
C. Grasslands have enough precipitation to support grasses but not enough to support large stands of
trees. The three main types of grasslands are tropical, temperate, and polar (tundra).
1. Savannas are tropical grasslands with scattered trees and enormous herds of hoofed animals.
2. Temperate grasslands with cold winters and hot, dry summers have deep and fertile soils that
make them widely used for growing crops and grazing cattle. In the American Midwest, there
are two types of temperate grasslands: short-grass prairie and long-grass prairie.
3. Polar grasslands, or arctic tundra, are covered with ice and snow except during a brief
summer.
SCIENCE FOCUS 7.2

Revisiting the Savanna: Elephants as a Keystone Species
Ecologists view elephants as a keystone species in the African savanna. Without African elephants,
savanna food webs would collapse and the savanna would become shrubland. Conservation
scientists classify the African elephant as vulnerable to extinction.
D. Chaparral consists mostly of dense growths of low-growing evergreen shrubs and occasional
small trees with leathery leaves. Its animal species include mule deer, chipmunks, jackrabbits,
lizards, and a variety of birds. The soil is thin and not very fertile.
E. Forests are lands that are dominated by trees. The three main types of forest—tropical, temperate,
and cold (northern coniferous, or boreal)—result from combinations of varying precipitation
levels and temperatures.
1. Tropical rain forests have heavy rainfall on most days and a rich diversity of species
occupying a variety of specialized niches in distinct layers. Tropical rain forests are near the
equator and have hot, humid conditions.
a. At least half of these forests have been destroyed or disturbed by human activities.
2. Temperate deciduous forests grow in areas with moderate average temperatures, abundant
rainfall, and long, warm summers.
a. Dominated by few species of broadleaf deciduous trees such as oak, hickory, maple,
aspen, and birch.
b. Animal species living in these forests include predators such as wolves, foxes, and
wildcats.
c. On a worldwide basis, this biome has been disturbed by human activity more than any
other terrestrial biome as a result of establishing settlements, industrialization, and
urbanization.
3. Coastal coniferous forests or temperate rain forests are found in scattered coastal temperate
areas with ample rainfall and moisture from dense ocean fogs. These forests contain thick
stands of large cone-bearing, or coniferous, trees.
4. Northern coniferous forests, also called boreal forests or taigas are found south of arctic tundra
in northern regions across North America, Asia, and Europe and above certain altitudes in the
Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountain ranges of the United States.
a. Winters are long and extremely cold, with winter sunlight available only 6–8 hours per
day.
b. Summers are short, with cool to warm temperatures, and the sun shines as long as 19
hours a day during midsummer.
c. Plant diversity is low because few species can survive the winters when soil moisture is
frozen.
F. Mountains are high-elevation forested islands of biodiversity and often have snow-covered peaks
that reflect solar radiation and gradually release water to lower elevation streams and ecosystems.
1. Mountains have important ecological roles such as habitats for endemic species, biodiversity,
and sanctuaries for animal species driven from other habitats.
2. Mountains play a major role in the hydrologic cycle.
G. Human activities have damaged or disturbed to some extent about 60% of the world’s terrestrial
ecosystems.
Teaching Tips
Large Lecture Courses
As a group, first brainstorm a list of the major ecosystems in the local area. Some places are surprisingly
diverse, when taking into account the places one might drive to in a day. For each of these, ask the
students to propose in what way the climate determines where that ecosystem is found. Focus particular
attention on rainshadows and the similarity between latitude and elevation.
Smaller Lecture Courses

Have the class as a whole brainstorm a list of the major ecosystems in the local area. Next, break the class
into small groups, assigning each a particular ecosystem or biome. Have them suggest what human
activities are causing the most damage or disruption to that ecosystem. After allowing time to do so,
compile these lists on the board and determine the extent to which there is overlap between biomes.
Key Terms
atmospheric pressure high
biome insolation
climate latitude
cold front low
convection ocean currents
convection cell permafrost
greenhouse effect rain shadow effect
greenhouse gas weather
gyre warm front
Term Paper Research Topics

1. Weather and climate: greenhouse effect; microclimates.
2. Plant and animal adaptations to different biomes: desert plants and animals; plants and animals of the
tundra; mountain microclimates and vertically zoned vegetation; organisms of the Amazon.
3. Fragile ecosystems: deserts; tropical forests; tundra.
4. Should Alaska be opened up to more oil drilling? Debate the pros and cons of this issue.
5. Global: Montreal Protocol; Kyoto Protocol.
Discussion Topics
1. How are mountain ecosystems like “islands of biodiversity”? What other island-like habitats are
there?
2. Why are rainforests more diverse than other forests?
3. What would happen if ocean currents stopped redistributing heat? How could this situation arise?
4. Is the greenhouse effect the same as global warming? How do these two concepts differ?
5. Why are grasslands well-suited for raising crops?
6. What are the three most important attributes or ecosystem functions of your local biome?
Activities and Projects

1. Arrange a field trip providing opportunities to compare and contrast ecosystems of several different
types. Do the boundaries among different kinds of ecosystems tend to be sharply delineated?
2. Ask students to bring to class and share examples of art, music, poetry, and other creative expressions
of human thoughts and feelings about earth’s climate, deserts, grasslands, forests, and oceans. Lead a
class discussion on the subject of how human culture has been shaped to an important degree by the
environmental conditions of each major biome.
3. Visit a weather station to see the types of equipment that are used to predict the weather.
4. Invite a climatologist to visit your classroom to describe the climate of your region: past, present, and
future.
5. What soil types and significantly different microclimates exist in your locale? As a class project,
inventory these elements of diversity and relate them to observable differences in the distribution of
vegetation, animal life, agricultural activities, and other phenomena.
Attitudes and Values
1. What is blowing in the wind in your community? How does the wind make you feel?
2. Do you feel that the development of your community is related to the climate of the area? Are there
any connections you have experienced?
3. Are you aware of mountains or bodies of water in your area that affect local climate conditions?
4. Do humans have a right to use the atmosphere in any way they wish? Do you see limits to freedom of
choice? If so, what determines those limits?
5. Do you feel that humans have the power to alter the earth’s climate? Do you feel that humans can
responsibly control their impact on the atmosphere?
Suggested Answers to End-of-Chapter Questions

Chapter Review
Core Case Study
1. Describe African savanna (Core Case Study) and explain why it serves as an example of how
differences in climate lead to the formation of different types of ecosystems.
• This biome typically contains scattered trees and usually has warm temperatures year-round
with alternating dry and wet seasons. Savannas in East Africa are home to grazing (primarily
grass-eating) and browsing (twig- and leaf-nibbling) hoofed animals.
Section 7.1
2. What is the key concept for this section? Define weather. Define front and distinguish between a
warm front and a cold front. What is atmospheric pressure? Define and distinguish between a
high and a low. What are El Niño and La Niña? Summarize their effects. Explain how tornadoes
form and describe their effects. What are tropical cyclones and what is the difference between
hurricanes and typhoons? How do these storms form?
• Key factors that influence weather are moving masses of warm and cold air, changes in
atmospheric pressure, and occasional shifts in major winds.
• Weather is the set of physical conditions of the lower atmosphere, including temperature,
precipitation, humidity, wind speed, cloud cover, and other factors, in a given area over a
period of hours to days.
• A front is the boundary between two air masses with different temperatures and densities. A
warm front is the boundary between an advancing warm air mass and the cooler one it is
replacing. A cold front is the leading edge of an advancing mass of cold air.
• Atmospheric pressure results from molecules of gases in the atmosphere (mostly nitrogen and
oxygen) zipping around at very high speeds and bouncing off everything they encounter.
• An air mass with high pressure, called a high, contains cool, dense air that descends slowly
toward the earth’s surface and becomes warmer. A low-pressure air mass, called a low,
contains low-density, warm air at its center, which rises, expands, and cools.
• The change in normal wind patterns in the Pacific Ocean is called the El Niño–Southern
Oscillation, or ENSO. These changes result in drier weather in some areas and wetter weather
in other areas. A strong ENSO can alter weather conditions over at least two-thirds of the
globe.
• La Niña, the reverse of El Niño, cools some coastal surface waters. It also occurs every few
years and it typically leads to more Atlantic Ocean hurricanes, colder winters in Canada and
the northeastern United States, and warmer and drier winters in the southeastern and
southwestern United States. It also usually leads to wetter winters in the Pacific Northwest,
torrential rains in Southeast Asia, and sometimes more wildfires in Florida.
• Tornadoes often occur when a large, dry, cold front moving southward from Canada runs into
a large mass of warm humid air moving northward from the Gulf of Mexico. As the large
warm front moves rapidly over the denser cold air mass, it rises swiftly and forms strong
vertical convection currents that suck air upward, causing a spinning, vertically rising air
mass, or vortex. Tornadoes can destroy houses and cause other serious damage in areas where
they touch down. The United States is the world’s most tornado-prone country, followed by
Australia.
• Tropical cyclones are created by the formation of low-pressure cells of air over warm tropical
seas. Hurricanes are tropical cyclones that form in the Atlantic Ocean. Those forming in the
Pacific Ocean usually are called typhoons. Areas of low pressure over warm ocean waters
(80F or more) draw in air from surrounding higher pressure areas. The earth’s rotation
makes these winds spiral counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the
southern hemisphere. Moist air, warmed by the heat of the ocean, rises in a vortex through the
center of the storm until it becomes a tropical cyclone.
Section 7.2
3. What is the key concept for this section? Define climate and distinguish between weather and
climate. Define ocean currents. Define ocean currents. Define convection and convection cell.
Explain how uneven solar heating of the earth affects climate. Define latitude and explain how
latitudes are designated. Define insolation and explain how it is related to latitude. Explain how
the tilt of the earth’s axis and resulting seasonal changes affect climates.
• Key concept: Key factors that influence an area’s climate are incoming solar energy, the
earth’s rotation, global patterns of air and water movement, gases in the atmosphere, and the
earth’s surface features.
• Climate is an area’s general pattern of atmospheric conditions over periods ranging from at
least three decades to thousands of years. Weather often fluctuates daily, from one season to
another, and from one year to the next. However, climate tends to change slowly because it is
the average of long-term atmospheric conditions.
• Heat from the sun evaporates ocean water and transfers heat from the oceans to the
atmosphere, especially near the hot equator. This evaporation of water creates giant cyclical
convection cells that circulate air, heat, and moisture both vertically and from place to place in
the atmosphere.
• Convection is the movement of fluid matter (such as gas or water) caused when the warmer
and less dense part of a body of such matter rises while the cooler, denser part of the fluid
sinks due to gravity. In the atmosphere, convection occurs when the sun warms the air and
causes some of it to rise, while cooler air sinks in a cyclical pattern called a convection cell.
• Uneven heating of the earth’s surface results in the air being heated much more at the equator,
where the sun’s rays strike directly, than at the poles, where sunlight strikes at an angle and
spreads out over a much greater area.
• Latitude is the location between the equator and one of the poles, designated by degrees (X°)
north or south. The equator is at 0°, the poles are at 90° north and 90° south, and areas
between range from 0° to 90°.
• The input of solar energy in a given area is called insolation and it varies with latitude. This
partly explains why tropical regions are hot, polar regions are cold, and temperate regions
generally alternate between warm and cool temperatures.
• The earth’s axis—an imaginary line connecting the north and south poles—is tilted with
respect to the sun’s rays. As a result, regions north and south of the equator are tipped toward
or away from the sun at different times, as the earth makes its annual revolution around the
sun. This means most areas of the world experience widely varying amounts of solar energy,
and thus very different seasons, throughout the year.
4. How does the rotation of the earth on its axis affect climates? What is the Coriolis effect? Explain
how prevailing winds form and how they affect climate. Explain how ocean currents affect
climate. What is a gyre?
• As the earth rotates to the east, the equator spins faster than the regions to its north and south.
This means that air masses moving to the north or south from the equator are deflected to the
east, because they are also moving east faster than the land below them. This deflection is
known as the Coriolis effect.
• Because of the Coriolis effect, the air moving toward the equator curls in a westerly direction.
In the northern hemisphere, it thus flows southwest from northeast. In the southern
hemisphere, it flows northwest from southeast. These winds are known as the northeast trade
winds and the southeast trade winds. They are known as prevailing winds because they blow
constantly.
• Ocean currents help to redistribute heat from the sun, thereby influencing climate and
vegetation, especially near coastal areas. This solar heat, along with differences in water,
creates warm and cold ocean currents. They are driven by prevailing winds and the earth’s
rotation help to redistribute heat from the sun, thereby influencing climate and vegetation,
especially near coastal areas. Continental coastlines change their directions. As a result,
between the continents, they flow in roughly circular patterns, called gyres, which move
clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere.
5. Define and give four examples of a greenhouse gas. What is the greenhouse effect and why is it
important to the earth’s life and climate? What is the rain shadow effect and how can it lead to the
formation of deserts? Why do cities tend to have more haze and smog, higher temperatures, and
lower wind speeds than the surrounding countryside?
• Greenhouse gases include several gases in the atmosphere, including water vapor (H2O),
carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), which absorb and release
heat that warms the atmosphere.
• The earth’s surface absorbs solar energy and transforms it to heat, which then rises into the
lower atmosphere. Some of this heat escapes into space, but some is absorbed by molecules
of greenhouse gases and emitted into the lower atmosphere. This natural warming effect of
the troposphere is called the greenhouse effect. Without the greenhouse effect, temperatures
on earth would be too extreme to support life.
• The rain shadow effect is a reduction of rainfall and loss of moisture from the landscape on
the side of mountains facing away from prevailing surface winds. Warm, moist air in onshore
winds loses most of its moisture as rain and snow on the windward slopes of a mountain
range. This leads to semi-arid and arid conditions on the leeward side of the mountain range
and the land beyond.
• Cities have building materials that absorb and hold heat, buildings that block wind flow, and
motor vehicles and the climate-control systems of buildings that release large quantities of
heat and pollutants, resulting in more haze and smog, higher temperatures, and lower wind
speeds than the surrounding countryside.
Section 7.3
6. What is the key concept for this section? Explain how different combinations of annual
precipitation and temperatures averaged over several decades, along with global air circulation
patterns and ocean currents, lead to the formation of deserts, grasslands, and forests. What is a
biome? Explain why there are three major types of each of the major biomes (deserts, grasslands,
and forests). Explain why biomes are not uniform. Describe how climate and vegetation vary with
latitude and elevation.
• Desert, grassland, and forest biomes can be tropical, temperate, or cold depending on their
climate and location.
• Different climates based on long-term average annual precipitation and temperatures, global
air circulation patterns, and ocean currents, lead to the formation of tropical (hot), temperate
(moderate), and polar (cold) deserts, grasslands, and forests.
• Biomes are large terrestrial regions, each characterized by a certain type of climate and
dominant forms of plant life.
• Average temperatures over many decades creates a variety of biomes with varying
temperature ranges, thus cold, temperate and hot designation of biomes.
• Biomes are not uniform because they consist of a variety of areas, each with somewhat
different biological communities but with similarities typical of the biome. These areas occur
because of the irregular distribution of the resources needed by plants and animals and
because human activities have removed or altered the natural vegetation in many areas. There
are also differences in vegetation along the transition zone or ecotone between any two
different ecosystems or biomes.
• Both climate and vegetation vary with latitude and elevation. If you climb a tall mountain
from its base to its summit, you would encounter deciduous forest, coniferous forest, tundra,
then mountain ice and snow.
• As you climb a high mountain you experience changes in vegetation similar to that of moving
latitudinally to the north.
7. Explain how the three major types of deserts differ in their climate and vegetation. Why are
desert ecosystems vulnerable to long-term damage? How do desert plants and animals survive?
• Tropical deserts are hot and dry most of the year with few plants and a hard, windblown
surface strewn with rocks and some sand.
• Temperate deserts have high daytime temperatures in summer and low in winter and there is
more precipitation than in tropical deserts, with sparse vegetation consisting mostly of widely
dispersed, drought-resistant shrubs and cacti or other succulents adapted to the lack of water
and temperature variations.
• Cold deserts have cold winters and warm or hot summers and low precipitation, with desert
plants and animals having adaptations that help them stay cool and get enough water to
survive.
• Desert ecosystems are fragile because they experience slow plant growth, low species
diversity, slow nutrient cycling, and very little water.
• Desert plants have evolved a number of strategies based on such adaptations. Some drop their
leaves during hot spells. Giant saguaro plants have no leaves and store water in their fleshy
tissue. Some have deep roots to reach the water table while others have waxy cuticle
coverings on their leaves.
• Most desert animals are small. Some hide in cool burrows or rocky crevices by day and come
out at night or in the early morning. Others become dormant during periods of extreme heat
or drought. Kangaroo rats never drink water. They get the water they need by breaking down
fats in seeds that they consume. Insects and reptiles such as rattlesnakes have thick outer
coverings to minimize water loss through evaporation, and their wastes are dry feces and a
dried concentrate of urine.
8. Explain how the three major types of grasslands differ in their climate and vegetation. Explain
how savanna animals survive seasonal variations in rainfall (Core Case Study). Why is the
elephant an important component of the African savanna? Why have many of the world’s
temperate grasslands disappeared? Describe arctic tundra and define permafrost. What is
chaparral and what are the risks of living there?
• Tropical grasslands like the savanna contain widely scattered clumps of trees such as acacia,
which are covered with thorns that keep some herbivores away. This biome usually has warm
temperatures year-round and alternating dry and wet seasons.
• Temperate grassland has winters that can be bitterly cold, summers that are hot and dry, and
annual precipitation that is fairly sparse and falls unevenly through the year. Most of the
grasses die and decompose each year, and organic matter accumulates to produce a deep,
fertile soil.
• Cold grasslands, or arctic tundra (Russian for “marshy plain”), lie south of the Arctic polar
ice cap. During most of the year, these treeless plains are bitterly cold. Winters are long and
dark, and scant precipitation falls mostly as snow. Under the snow, this biome is carpeted
with a thick, spongy mat of low-growing plants—primarily grasses, mosses, lichens, and
dwarf shrubs.
• Elephants eat woody shrubs and young trees. This helps keep the savanna from being
overgrown by these woody plants and prevents the grasses, which form the foundation of the
food web from dying out.
• Cold grasslands, or arctic tundra are bitterly cold, swept by frigid winds, and covered with ice
and snow. Winters are long with few hours of daylight, and the scant precipitation falls
primarily as snow. Under the snow, this biome is carpeted with a thick, spongy mat of low-
growing plants, primarily grasses, mosses, lichens, and dwarf shrubs.
• Permafrost is the underground soil in which captured water stays frozen for more than two
consecutive years.
• Temperate shrubland or chaparral occurs in many coastal regions that border on deserts. This
biome consists mostly of dense growths of low-growing evergreen shrubs and occasional
small trees with leathery leaves. Its animal species include mule deer, chipmunks, jackrabbits,
lizards, and a variety of birds.
• Many of the world’s natural temperate grasslands have disappeared because their fertile soils
are useful for growing crops and grazing cattle.
• Fires spread quickly and people living in chaparral assume the high risk of frequent fires,
which are often followed by flooding during winter rainy seasons.
9. Explain how the three major types of forests differ in their climate and vegetation. Why is
biodiversity so high in tropical rain forests? Why do most soils in tropical rain forests hold few
plant nutrients? Why do temperate deciduous forests typically have a thick layer of decaying
litter? What are coastal coniferous or temperate rain forests? How do most species of coniferous
evergreen trees survive the cold winters in boreal forests? What important ecological roles do
mountains play? Summarize the ways in which human activities have affected the world’s
deserts, grasslands, forests, and mountains.
• Tropical rain forests are found near the equator where hot, moisture-laden air rises and dumps
its moisture; these lush forests have year-round, uniformly warm temperatures, high
humidity, and heavy rainfall almost daily.
• Temperate deciduous forests grow in areas with moderate average temperatures that change
significantly with the season, supporting species such as oak, hickory, maple, poplar, and
beech.
• Cold forests have intense cold and drought in winter when snow blankets the ground, and
trees that take advantage of the brief summers because they need not take time to grow new
needles.
• Tropical rain forest life forms occupy a variety of specialized niches in distinct layers.
Stratification of specialized plant and animal niches in a tropical rain forest enables the
coexistence of a great variety of species (high species diversity).
• Dropped leaves, fallen trees, and dead animals decompose quickly because of the warm,
moist conditions and the hordes of decomposers. This rapid recycling of scarce soil nutrients
explains why there is so little plant litter on the ground. Instead of being stored in the soil,
about 90% of plant nutrients released by decomposition are quickly taken up and stored by
trees, vines, and other plants.
• Temperate deciduous forests have slower decomposition rates and build up a thick layer of
litter.
• Species in coniferous forests tend to have narrow waxy needles and are less susceptible to the
cold winter temperatures.
• Coastal coniferous forests or temperate rain forests are found in scattered coastal temperate
areas that have ample rainfall or moisture from dense ocean fogs. Dense stands of large
conifers once dominated undisturbed areas of this biome along the coast of North America,
from Canada to northern California.
• Mountains help to regulate the earth’s climate. Mountaintops covered with ice and snow
reflect some solar radiation back into space, which helps to cool the earth and offset global
warming.
• About 60% of the world’s major terrestrial ecosystems are being degraded or used
unsustainably.
o Ways that we have affected deserts include: large desert cities, soil destruction by off
road vehicles, soil salinization from irrigation, the depletion of groundwater, land
disturbance, and pollution from mineral extraction.
o Ways that we have affected grasslands include: conversion to cropland, release of CO2
to atmosphere from burning grassland, overgrazing by livestock, and oil production and
off-road vehicles in arctic tundra.
o Ways that we have affected forests include: clearing for agriculture, livestock grazing,
timber, urban development, conversion of diverse forests to tree plantations, damage
from off-road vehicles, and pollution of forest streams.
o Ways that we have affected mountains include: agriculture, timber extraction, mineral
extraction, hydroelectric dams and reservoirs, increasing tourism, urban air pollution,
increased ultraviolet radiation from ozone depletion, and soil damage from off-road
vehicles.
o Warming climate is likely to change the locations of earth’s major biomes.
10. What are this chapter’s three big ideas? Summarize the connections between the climate and
terrestrial ecosystems, and explain how these connections are in keeping with the three scientific
principles of sustainability.
• The three big ideas:
o Differences in climate, based mostly on long-term differences in average temperature
and precipitation, largely determine the types and locations of the earth’s deserts,
grasslands, and forests.
o The earth’s terrestrial ecosystems provide important ecosystem and economic services.
o Human activities are degrading and disrupting many of the ecosystem and economic
services provided by the earth’s terrestrial ecosystems.
• The climate is driven by solar power and determines what the biodiversity in any terrestrial
system will be. Nutrients are cycled throughout these systems and the rate of cycling is
generally determined by the climate.
Critical Thinking
The following are examples of the material that should be contained in possible student answers to the
end of chapter Critical Thinking questions. They represent only a summary overview and serve to
highlight the core concepts that are addressed in the text. It should be anticipated that the students will
provide more in-depth and detailed responses to the questions depending on an individual instructor’s
stated expectations.
1. Why is the African savanna (Core Case Study) a good example of the three scientific principles
of sustainability in action? For each of these principles, give an example of how it applies to the
African savanna and explain how it is being violated by human activities that now affect the
savanna.
The three scientific principles of sustainability are:

• Reliance on solar energy—the savanna’s warm temperature and seasonal rainfall are
instigated by the energy of the sun.
• Nutrient Recycling—the hydrologic cycle, the elemental cycles such as carbon, phosphorous
and sulfur play an active role in circulating minerals between the lithosphere, hydrosphere
and atmosphere.
• Biodiversity—the savannah is a rich area of biodiversity containing scattered trees and
grasslands, supporting grazing and browsing hoofed animals. They include wildebeests,
gazelles, antelopes, zebras, elephants and as well as their predators such as lions, hyenas, and
humans.
2. For each of the following, decide whether it represents a likely trend in weather or in climate: (a)
an increase in the number of thunderstorms in your area from one summer to the next; (b) a
decrease of 20% in the depth of a mountain snowpack between 1975 and 2015; (c) a rise in the
average winter temperatures in a particular area over a decade; and (d) an increase in the earth’s
average global temperature since 1980.
(a) Weather
(b) Climate
(c) Weather
(d) Climate
3. Review the five major climatic factors explained in Section 7.2 and explain how each of them has
helped to define the climate in the area where you live or go to school.
Answers will vary according to the area indicated but will contain reference to:
a. the cyclical movement of air driven by solar energy
b. uneven heating of the earth’s surface by the sun
c. tilt of the earth’s axis and resulting seasonal changes
d. rotation of the earth on its axis
e. ocean currents
4. Why do deserts and arctic tundra support a much smaller biomass of animals than do tropical
forests? Why do most animals in a tropical rain forest live in its trees?
These areas contain fewer vegetative species than other ecosystems, and as the biomass of the
producer species (plants) is small, the biomass of animals will be also be less than in these
ecosystems. This follows the second law of thermodynamics and the loss of energy/biomass
through successive trophic levels. More productive ecosystems such as tropical rain forests have
more producers/plants that provide an abundance of food sources for herbivores and other animal
species in these regions. More animals are found in these tropical regions. Animals tend to
congregate in the trees because of the shelter provided and the abundant food found there.
5. How might the distribution of the world’s forests, grasslands, and deserts shown in Figure 7.14
differ if the prevailing winds shown in Figure 7.9 did not exist?
We would likely find a more even distribution of biomes on the face of the earth, without things
like deserts appearing intermittently.
6. What biomes are best suited for: (a) raising crops, and (b) grazing livestock? Use the three
scientific principles of sustainability to come up with three guidelines for growing food and
grazing livestock in these biomes on a more sustainable basis.
(a) Temperate grasslands are best suited for growing crops. Four sustainability guidelines to
consider are: grow crops that are native to the area and that thrive under the normal rainfall and
sunlight for the area; grow a wide variety of crops using polyculture, which enhances
biodiversity; use best management practices such as no-till agriculture, which will help maintain
nutrient recycling and minimize soil erosion, and use integrated pest management techniques to
control the population of potential pest species.
(b) Temperate grasslands are best suited for grazing livestock. (In the tropics the savanna contains
large numbers of grazing herds of animals that are sometimes hunted as a food source.) Four
sustainability guidelines to consider are: graze animals that are native to the area as these are best
adapted for the environmental conditions of the region in terms of sunlight, temperature, and
rainfall; graze a wide number of different animal species, which optimizes the biodiversity of the
area; allow animal wastes/manure to remain in the grazing area, which promotes local nutrient
recycling, and limit the numbers in the populations of the grazing animals, which will ensure that
overgrazing does not occur.
7. What type of biome do you live in? (If you live in a developed area, what type of biome was the
area before it was developed?) List three ways in which your lifestyle could be contributing to the
degradation of this biome. What are three lifestyle changes you could make in order to reduce
your contributions, if any?
Answers will vary by region. Ways in which lifestyle harms the local biome will vary as well, but
may include habitat destruction from development and agriculture, pollution from transportation
and industry, and unsustainable water use, in terms of over-exploitation or pollution.
8. You are a defense attorney arguing in court for sparing a tropical rainforest from being cut down.
Give your three most important arguments for the defense of this ecosystem.
Compelling arguments for the defense of tropical forests are that an intact tropical forest ecosystem
contains more biodiversity per unit area than any other ecosystem, these forests help regulate global
weather patterns, and forests act as carbon sinks, tying up carbon that would otherwise be contributing to
the climate change phenomenon.
Data Analysis
In this chapter, you learned how long-term variations in the average temperature and average precipitation
play a major role in determining the types of deserts, forests, and grasslands found in different parts of the
world. Below are typical annual climate graphs for a tropical grassland (savanna) in Africa and a
temperate grassland in the mid-western United States.
1. In what month (or months) does the most precipitation fall in each of these areas?
• Tropical grassland: January and February
• Temperate grassland: Last of April to early May
2. What are the driest months in each of these areas?

• Tropical grassland: June
• Temperate grassland: January
3. What is the coldest month in the tropical grassland?

June
4. What is the warmest month in the temperature grassland?

June
Answers to Google Earth Activity

1. a
2. true
3. d
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thought in his eyes, he added evasively: “Bonnie May appears to be
the real theatregoer of the family. She will want to come, I’m sure.”
“Oh, Bonnie May!” Baggot seemed to be brushing the name aside.
“It’s the family I want. I have a reason. Be sure not to fail me.” He
seemed to remember something in connection with the work over at
the Palace. In a moment he was gone, without a word of farewell.
He was utterly childish, Baron thought, and certainly it was wrong to
disappoint children needlessly.
Yes, he would really try to persuade the family to go.
When occasion arose to speak to Bonnie May alone he tried to make
light of the whole affair. “A great honor,” he began, “for you and all of
us. A box has been reserved for us for the first performance of ‘The
Break of Day.’”
Bonnie May clapped her hands. “How fine!” she said. “Do you think
they will all go?”
“I hardly know. Really, it doesn’t seem very important—does it?—a
first performance, in a summer theatre, by an unknown company!”
She seemed anxious. “Anyway, I do hope mother will go.”
Baron thought he understood that. If “mother” refused to go, she
might not be permitted to go herself.
However, he approached his mother on the subject with a certain
amount of earnestness. “I’ve had a sort of hand in the play, in a small
way,” he explained. “And Baggot is anxious to have us all come.” He
couldn’t resist the temptation to add: “He places a high value on the
opinion of what he calls nice people. That means us. You can’t seem
indifferent to such recognition, can you?”
Mrs. Baron was deaf to the sarcasm. “Isn’t it one of those cheap
summer theatres?” she asked.
“Yes, but really I don’t know that it will be very different from the
winter performances. Not as an ethical proposition, anyway.”
“I hardly think I’d be interested,” she decided. However, she did not
speak with her usual certainty, and she glanced at her son a bit
anxiously. If he really wanted her to go....
On a later occasion Baron again touched the subject. He had just got
rid of Baggot, who was in an unusually enthusiastic mood.
“Really, mother, I have an idea that play is going to be quite worth
while. If you didn’t mind it very much....”
But Mrs. Baron fancied she was being coerced. “No, I think not,” she
said, shaking her head.
“And Bonnie May,” added Baron. “Great goodness, how anxious she
is to go! I suppose she thinks she can’t go unless you do.”
Mrs. Baron’s eyes flashed. That was it! Bonnie May’s comfort and
pleasure—that, and nothing more.
“I remember that argument,” she said, rather disagreeably. “You
forget that she has other friends now—rather better suited to her
needs in this case. The Thornburgs can take her.”
But Baron, noting the uncomfortable look in her eyes, left her with
the conclusion, unexpressed: “My bet is that the Thornburgs will not
take her.”
CHAPTER XXIII
BARON COMES HOME ON A BEER-DRAY
Baron was not at all confident that any of the dramatic editors would
want him to write a review of “The Break of Day.” He merely hoped
his services might be required. And he was disappointed.
He might have had the assignment for the asking, perhaps; but he
felt a hesitancy about asking. He had “fathered” the play, somewhat.
He had a personal interest in it.
Moreover, there was one reason why he was glad to be disengaged.
Now he could attend the performance as an ordinary spectator, and
he could take Bonnie May with him.
The day of the first performance arrived. Baron left the mansion early
in the forenoon, more for the purpose of escaping the half-insane
Baggot than for any other reason. Baggot didn’t really believe that
Baron could help him, perhaps, but his nature demanded that he talk
about his play all the time, and Baron listened well.
Bonnie May was not about when Baron left the mansion. He had had
no final understanding with her as to whether she was to go to the
theatre that night or not. And it was for this reason that he was
coming home in a particularly eager mood, late in the afternoon, to
tell her that he was foot-loose, and that she might depend upon him
as an escort to the theatre.
He was coming home with much eagerness—and then an accident
happened.
He started to alight from the cross-town car before it stopped, and
his foot struck a loose fragment of stone, and he lost his balance.
Thinking of the matter afterward, he decided that he could not recall
an experience more banal, more needless. But he did not reach this
conclusion at the time, for the good reason that his head struck the
pavement and he lost consciousness. There had been just one
instant of sharp agony.
He opened his eyes presently to find himself supported by two men.
Every passenger in the crowded car, which had stopped, was staring
at him. A crowd of pedestrians had also stopped to see what had
happened.
He looked dazedly at the two men who were supporting him. One
was the car-conductor, whose eyes expressed fear and disgust. The
other man’s appearance was in some degree familiar to Baron. He
was gigantic, ruddy, wholly self-possessed.
Baron wondered who this man was, and then, as his gaze roved
weakly from point to point, he saw a red beer-dray—and he knew.
This was the beer-driver whom he and Bonnie May had watched and
discussed one day from the attic window.
“He’s all right,” declared the beer-driver, getting a firmer grip on
Baron’s arm.
Baron was greatly relieved to hear that he was “all right.” He had his
doubts. The back of his head seemed to be asleep, and there was a
horrible pain in his left leg when he tried to touch the pavement with
his foot.
“I’ll want your name and address, and the names of witnesses,” said
the conductor. He had produced a little note-book.
“You don’t need them,” declared Baron. “It was my own fault. I don’t
want to be detained here.”
“But the rules require—” said the conductor.
“Just forget the rules,” advised the beer-driver, who perceived that
Baron meant what he said. And in an instant Baron was feeling a
new sort of embarrassment, because the ruddy giant of the beer-
dray had picked him up in his arms, and was taking long strides in
the direction of his dray. “Out of the way!” he ordered, and people
obeyed.
Baron had the helpless sensation of one who rides on an elephant.
He thought he realized now just what it must be to perform the tasks
of a mahout. “Though I don’t seem to need an ankus—yet,” he
meditated. Baron had read his Kipling.
“I’m sorry to trouble you,” he said, speaking in a general downward
direction.
“You’re not troubling me,” came back the answer.
The driver had reached his dray, and greatly to Baron’s amazement,
he put a foot on the hub of the wheel, a disengaged hand on the iron
bar surrounding the back of the seat, and had vaulted into a sitting
posture, carrying his burden with him.
It seemed to Baron that he had been swung through limitless space,
as if he had been a star, held to its place by gravity. He held his hat
in place, as he might have done if a cyclone had seized him in its
clutch. And with such attention as he could command he was
observing the performance of the driver.
“Sit down,” commanded that individual: needlessly, for already Baron
was by his side, holding on to the iron bar at the back of the seat,
and feeling uncomfortably light and dizzy. His companion looked into
his eyes. “A pretty hard jolt,” he said, thrusting a protecting arm
about his charge. “Gee-app!” He pulled the reins dexterously with the
aid of thumb and little finger, and the horses began to move.
Much to Baron’s surprise, the driver did not ask him where he lived,
but quietly turned his horses’ heads in the right direction, adjusting
the brake with his foot, and glancing ahead to see that the right of
way was clear.
Baron’s mind reverted to Bonnie May for an instant, and he
remembered that she had noted how the driver had held his reins
with authority, and sat with his great legs planted purposefully before
him. Yes, that was precisely right.
“You haven’t asked me where I live,” he remarked, trying to be partly
independent of his companion’s support.
“I don’t have to. I know.”
“How?”
“I’ve noticed you before now. You’re one of the Barons.”
The injured man felt flattered. Still, he reflected, the driver might
have noticed him for any number of unflattering reasons. For a
moment he tried to fathom this thought: Was it an evidence that the
driver was simple and stupid, that he had interested himself in the
people who lived in his neighborhood? He couldn’t reach a
satisfactory conclusion.
“It’s awfully good of you to give me a lift like this,” he remarked. He
was beginning to feel a little less shaken and strange.
“Oh, I don’t know. You’d do as much for me, wouldn’t you?”
“Carry you around and lift you up on a high seat?” asked Baron
incredulously.
The driver threw back his immense head, revealing a bronzed, bull-
like throat from which a sound like thunder came. “Well, no, I guess
you wouldn’t do that,” he admitted.
The horses, with their ears turned alternately toward the driver and
pointed ahead, were brought to a halt in front of the mansion.
“Now you sit up here and hold tight, and try to look as if nothing had
happened,” directed the driver. He removed his arm and sprang to
the pavement.
“Why?” Baron wanted to know.
“I want to call your old lady out, so she can see you sitting up on the
seat.”
Baron frowned. “Why?” he asked again.
“If I’d carry you to the door and ring the bell, she’d have a fit when
she came out. She’s pretty high-strung, anyway.” It was as if he were
describing a woman of his own household, instead of Baron’s.
“Oh!” responded Baron. He was thinking that it was difficult to know
where to expect chivalry in one form or another, and that there were
various ways of manifesting it. “I believe you’re right,” he added.
It was Mrs. Baron who came to the door in response to a ring. It is
not improbable that she had been looking out of the upper window.
“Your son wants to speak to you,” said the driver, dragging off his
German cap and revealing a shock of dishevelled hair.
Mrs. Baron seemed to ignore the man utterly. She stood, pale and
rigid, staring at Baron. She comprehended at least one thing: he had
driven up to the door of the mansion in a beer-dray.
Then she smiled ominously. “What a quaint idea!” said she, passing
the driver and descending the steps. “Of course, this is one of your
jokes!”
She paused then. She had swiftly become less assured in her anger.
“I’ve had a mean fall, mother,” said Baron, trying to keep a martyr-
like tone out of his voice. “I’m afraid I’ll have to be carried into the
house. This man was good enough to bring me home. He was afraid
of alarming you. It was his idea that you ought to be notified before
he carried me in.”
“Oh, I didn’t understand!” There was swift, childlike remorse in her
bearing. “It was kind of you,” she added to the driver, by way of
atonement for her rudeness. She regarded him with flickering eyes.
She could not help shrinking from the warm, gross bulk of the man,
yet she admired him somewhat as a lamb might admire a benevolent
bull that has just driven a wolf away.
She went as far as the curb and looked up at Baron critically. Yes, he
was seriously injured. Something told her that. A strained expression
about his lips and eyes, perhaps, and his attitude.
She turned anxiously to the driver. “Do you suppose you can get him
in without any help?” she asked.
“Sure!” The driver derived no joy from her sudden discomfiture—in
the sudden levelling of her high spirit to the lowly plane of a fearful
mother. Perhaps he did not realize that she had been wrathful
toward her son, and rude to him. “You go and push the door open
and get things ready.” He approached Baron and held his arms up.
Baron put his hands on the immense fellow’s shoulders, and again
he experienced that sensation of being swung through space. In an
instant he was being borne up his own front steps.
“Can you carry him up-stairs?” inquired Mrs. Baron dubiously.
“Why not?” And up the stairs the driver proceeded, without the
slightest evident effort.
At the top Mrs. Baron led the way into Baron’s old room—now
Bonnie May’s. But the driver paused on the threshold, leisurely
casting his eyes over the evidences of feminine proprietorship.
“You’d better let me take him to his own room, mother,” he declared
decisively. He seemed quite unconscious of bearing a burden. He
was woodenly indifferent to Baron’s efforts to get down.
“But that’s up another flight,” was Mrs. Baron’s faltering response.
“That’s all right. You see, I’m used to delivering beer-barrels, and
they always find they save trouble if they let me put ’em just where
they belong.”
Baron, thinking of the difficulties which might arise when this willing
and capable Atlas was gone, quite agreed with the suggestion. “I’m
sure he’s right, mother,” he said, “if he doesn’t mind.”
Up another flight Baron was borne, and at the top the driver turned
about haltingly, but still seemingly unaware of having his strength
taxed, and called down: “You better see about getting a doctor,
mother. He’ll need to have himself looked after. I can put him to bed.”
Baron was able to grin weakly at the driver’s simple generalship—
and at the fact that his mother obeyed with nervous promptitude.
“That way,” said he, pointing, and then he essayed a little joke. “I
think you forgot to carry me around the block a time or two before
you started up here, didn’t you?” he asked the driver.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” came back the response. “If I had a twelve-year-
old boy who didn’t weigh more than you do, I’d drown him.”
With this the attic room was entered, and Baron was placed carefully
on a chair. Then his shoes and other garments were removed with
caution, and before he quite realized what had happened, he was in
bed.
“I wish I had your strength,” he said, feeling that such service as he
had received ought to be acknowledged somehow.
“What? Oh, you’d better leave that to me. I need it and you don’t. I
guess that’s about the only thing I’ve got.”
“No, it isn’t. You’ve got the right kind of a heart, too.”
This created instant embarrassment. By way of escape from praise,
the big fellow whispered loudly: “Say the word and I’ll jump out and
get a bucket of beer before the mother gets back.”
“Beer!” exclaimed Baron. He had always associated beer with festive
occasions, and he was quite sure the present moment was not a
festive occasion. “I don’t believe I care for any beer—just now.” He
believed he had achieved a commendably diplomatic stroke by
adding the two last words. He was prompted to add: “But if you’re
sure your horses won’t get restless, I’d be glad to have you stay until
mother comes.”
The driver sat down, selecting a straight-backed chair, and holding
himself so upright that he made Baron think of a huge, benevolent
heathen god. He had dropped his cap to the floor beside him, and
his hands were clasped about his capacious stomach. There was
now a restful placidity as well as extraordinary power in his
presence.
“And it isn’t just your strength that I envy,” said Baron, catching the
luminous blue eyes of the driver for an instant, “it’s the generous way
you’ve got of treating a fellow as if he were a brother!”
This, too, created great embarrassment. The driver’s face flamed
and he struggled to get away from anything resembling praise. “Yes,
sir!” he exclaimed, as if he were merely continuing, “that bay horse
would stand in his tracks until I came back, even if the owner of the
brewery tried to drive him away.”
Baron laughed. “Well, I won’t say anything more to your credit, if you
don’t want to hear it,” he said. But after a moment’s silence he went
on, more seriously than he had yet spoken, “but do tell me, for my
own good, how you manage to feel so well disposed toward people
—toward everybody!”
“Who, me? Oh, I just drink a bucket of beer every time I get thirsty,
and every time I begin to feel mean I go out and dance with the girls
pretty near all night. The bigger they are the easier I swing ’em.” He
leaned back and laughed until things in the room shook. A book fell
off the table.
Mrs. Baron came in with the doctor then, and it remained for her to
make the mistake which Baron had avoided.
“You must let me pay you for your trouble,” she said. “I don’t know
what would have happened but for you.”
But the extraordinary creature grasped his cap in both hands and
reddened again. “Who, me?” he said. “Oh, no, mother. I make mine
flirting with beer-barrels.” He made his exit uneasily. They heard him
whistling on the stairs. In the distance the front door closed with a
bang.
“What an extraordinary creature!” exclaimed Mrs. Baron.
“Yes,” replied Baron, “I’m afraid he is—extraordinary.”
He was remembering something about the misleading effects of a
make-up. Surely this big fellow’s immense body and his rough
speech were only a make-up, after all, hiding those qualities which
even from the standpoint of a Baron were most to be sought and
cherished! That was what Bonnie May had tried to impress upon
him.
Then, with sudden anxiety, Baron turned to his mother. “Where is
Bonnie May?” he asked.
“She went away this afternoon,” was the response. Mrs. Baron
avoided her son’s eyes. She spoke rather guiltily.
“She went away,” Baron mused disconsolately. “And it was to-night
she was so eager to have somebody take her to see ‘The Break of
Day.’”
CHAPTER XXIV
BONNIE MAY HIDES SOMETHING
Baron made a wry face when he was told by Doctor Percivald that
he had a very badly sprained ankle, and that he would have to
remain on his back indefinitely.
“Couldn’t it have been something less—ladylike?” he wanted to
know. But Doctor Percivald, being a scientific-minded person, merely
glanced at him impatiently and said nothing.
However, he speedily discovered that being an invalid on what might
be considered a preferred plan was not without its compensations.
He became the pivot around which the affairs of the household
revolved. He was constantly being considered and deferred to. It had
been so long since any member of the family had been disabled that
his affliction, being very limited in extent, was looked upon as a sort
of luxury.
However, though the family gathered about his bed occasionally to
hold pleasant discussions, there were times when he lay alone—and
these were the most profitable if not the most pleasant hours of all.
The noises of the street, pleasantly muffled, reached him;
movements in the house were faintly audible and pleasantly homely;
the sun shone with a lonely brilliance against his walls.
During such periods he took an inventory of life from a new angle.
He sat in judgment upon himself like a disinterested person. Baron,
disabled, critically surveyed Baron, able to be about.
“Spendthrift of time and chance—that’s what you are,” decided
Baron, disabled, directing his condemnation against Baron, well and
sound. “You’ve been thinking all the time that to be Baron was
something fine. You haven’t had sense enough to realize that merely
being Baron wasn’t being anything at all. You’ve got to realize that all
men must be measured by just one standard. You’ve got to quit
thinking it’s right for you to do just the pleasant things—the things
you like to do. You have got to go to work, and take orders like any
other man.”
Lying in his room, he obtained a new impression of Bonnie May, too.
She did not return to the mansion on the day of his accident. He
thought she might possibly do so after the theatre hour, but the
evening passed and in due time there were the sounds of the house
being closed for the night, and languid voices calling to one another
on the floor below.
The first long night passed, with occasional tapping on the invalid’s
door by Mrs. Baron. A dozen times during the night she came to see
if he needed anything, to be sure that he rested comfortably.
Finally he chided her gayly for disturbing him and herself; then, after
another interval which seemed only of a few minutes, he opened his
eyes again to respond to the tapping on the door, and discovered
that the sun was shining into the room. It was quite late in the
forenoon.
“I’ve come with the papers,” said Flora, approaching his bed like a
particularly lovely ministering angel. “Mother’s lying down. She didn’t
sleep very well last night.”
Baron had the odd thought that people must look entirely different if
you looked at them while you were lying down. Never before had
Flora seemed so serene and beautiful and richly endowed with
graces of person and voice. He was so pleased with this view of her
that he decided not to lift his head.
Then, while she arranged the papers, unconscious of his scrutiny, he
read an expression in her eyes which brought him abruptly to his
elbow.
“Flora,” he declared, “you’re not happy!”
She laughed softly as if to ridicule such a suggestion, but
immediately there was a delicate flush in her face. “Nonsense!” she
said. “And somebody helpless in the house to worry about? One
wouldn’t dance and sing under the circumstances. I’m trying to
behave becomingly—that’s all.”
Baron disregarded this. “And as soon as I get up,” he said, “I’m going
to see that certain nonsense is ended. He’s a dandy good fellow—
that’s what he is. I can’t imagine what we’ve all been thinking about.”
“He—” Flora began properly enough, but the conventional falsehood
she meant to utter failed to shape itself. She couldn’t return her
brother’s glance. It occurred to her that the window-shade needed
adjusting.
“I’m going to put a stop to certain nonsense,” Baron repeated. He
rattled the newspapers with decision, covertly regarding his sister,
who did not trust herself to speak again. She kept her eyes averted
as she left the room.
Flora had opened all the papers so that the dramatic reviews came
uppermost, and as Baron glanced from one to another he forgot
Flora completely. By the time he had glanced at the fifth review of
the production of “The Break of Day” he dropped the papers and
drew a long breath. “Holy Smoke!” he exclaimed, and then he
returned to his reading.
Baggot’s play had scored an almost unprecedented success.
Several of the dramatic critics had written signed articles in which
they expressed unbounded praise. And from his knowledge of
newspaper writing, Baron knew that even the most hardened of
theatregoers had been swept off their feet by the charm and novelty
of the new play.
Baron gathered that a new actress had been added to the group of
notable American artists as a result of the creation of the part of “The
Sprite.” But when he sought from one account to another for the
name of this player, he found only that the rôle of “The Sprite” had
been played “By Herself.” He couldn’t find her name anywhere, or
anything about her.
But after all, the identity of even a very successful player was not the
thing Baron was thinking of most. He was delighted that Baggot had
been successful. It seemed that Baggot had “arrived.”
His reflections were interrupted by his mother. She entered the room
rather hurriedly. Baron realized that something must have happened,
or she wouldn’t have come in like that, rubbing her eyes sleepily and
wearing a loose wrapper.
“They’re telephoning for you down at the newspaper office,” she
yawned. “I didn’t tell them you were—that you couldn’t.... I thought
maybe you might like to do some writing in bed, if they want you to.”
“No, I’m not going to do any writing in bed. I feel as if that is what I’ve
been doing always. I’m going to wait until I can get up, and then I’m
going to work in earnest.”
She regarded him dubiously, not understanding at all. “And what
shall I say?” she asked.
“Tell them I’m laid up, and that I’ll be down to see them as soon as
I’m able to be about.”
“Very well.”
“And mother—don’t say I’ve got a sprained ankle. Think of
something else.”
“Something else——” Mrs. Baron succeeded now in opening her
eyes to their normal width.
“It doesn’t sound very impressive. Everybody sprains his ankle. You
might say I’ve broken my leg, if you can’t think of anything else.”
“A sprained ankle is a sprained ankle,” was the answer he received;
and he dropped back on his pillow as limply as if he had been
overcome by a great flash of truth.
Almost immediately, however, he heard a distant commotion on the
stairway and, after an instant of whispering and murmuring in the
hall, his door flew open. To his astonishment, Bonnie May literally
ran into the room.
Her face was colorless; she was staring at him.
“What happened?” she asked in a voice which was unsteady.
“Nothing, child!” he exclaimed sharply. “They’ve alarmed you. It was
nothing at all. Didn’t mother tell you?”
“She told me there had been an accident and that you were in bed. I
didn’t wait for any more.”
“But you can see it’s nothing. I can’t understand your being so
excited.”
She went closer to him, and he could see that her body was
quivering. “Is it something that wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t
gone away?” she asked.
“It’s nothing at all—and it would have happened in any case. I’ve
only sprained my ankle. I’m ashamed to mention such a little thing.
And for goodness’ sake, don’t look as if I’d had my head cut off and
you were to blame.”
She sat down a distance from his bed, a strangely unhappy little
creature. Her sharp uneasiness gave place to a dull, increasing
apathy. She was not looking at Baron now.
He couldn’t stand that. “Did you see the play last night?” he asked
pleasantly.
She stared at him. “Did I see it? Certainly not. How could I?”
She was studying his eyes, and swiftly the misery in her own was
multiplied many times.
He almost lost patience with her. “Well, good gracious! Don’t take it
so much to heart. There will be other chances. It made good, you
know. It will have a run sometime. We’ll see it, you and I together.”
“Yes,” she said, and sighed. A settled look of misery returned to her
eyes.
She did not leave the mansion for many days. Her sprightly moods
returned to her occasionally; yet it was not to be ignored that in some
strange fashion she was changed.
She spent much of her time in Baron’s room. She became almost
irritatingly eager to serve him. She seemed to be wishing to atone for
something—to re-establish herself in her own confidence and
respect. That was how it seemed to Baron, after he had observed
her studiously a score of times.
Occasionally he drove her from his room, achieving this by gay
upbraidings. He insisted upon having the daily lessons attended to,
and it was with the liveliest interest that he listened to the little
tinkling melodies she played, slowly and with many an error. He
realized that a great deal of progress was being made. His mother
was patient, and Bonnie May was a painstaking pupil.
Baggot came in in the course of a day or two. He was cultivating a
new sort of manner, in which there was much condescension. His
tone seemed to say: “You see, I succeeded, even if you did fail me.”
“I’m sure the play is going to be a winner,” said Baron.
“Oh, yes—it will go all right. I’m overhauling it a bit. We only gave it
that first performance so I could see just how to finish it, and to get
our copyright, and that sort of thing. It will go on regularly, you know,
this fall.”
Baggot had received his promotion, Baron reflected. He would go
forward now into a more active life. He would probably be seen at
the mansion a time or two again, and that would be the end of him,
so far as the Barons were concerned.
Another visitor during those days was the beer-driver, who came to
inquire about Baron’s condition, and for further manifestations of
kindness, as it appeared.
Baron tried to shake his hand, but the task was too herculean.
“I might go out the back way and slip in a can, if the old lady’s
against it,” he said, flushing readily and smiling.
“It just happens that I don’t care for it,” said Baron. “I’m quite as
much obliged to you.”
He thought it was rather a hopeful sign that he was genuinely
pleased to see this man, who had tried to be a good neighbor.
“August is my name,” said the visitor as he prepared to go. “When
you’re near the brewery, ask for me. You could go to a dance with
me some night. We got a lot of fine fellows. Girls, too.” He said this in
the tone of one who would say: “You’re plenty good enough to go
with me.”
Then he, too, was gone.
The days passed—more days than Baron liked to count. And still
Bonnie May did not go over to the Thornburgs’, but haunted Baron’s
room early and late, between lesson hours, and tried in a thousand
ways to serve him.
He made curious discoveries touching her.
Often she stood by the window looking out, and he marvelled to see
her body become possessed by some strange spirit within her. Her
very flesh seemed to be thinking, to be trying to become articulate.
And when she looked at him, after such a period as this, she
suddenly, shrank within herself and gazed at him with a wistfulness
so intense that he felt an eager wish to help her—yet also a strange
helplessness.
Once he cried: “You strange little creature, what is it?”
But she only shook her head slowly and whispered, “Nothing”—
though he saw that her eyes filled with tears.
Finally Doctor Percivald called again—three weeks had passed
since the patient had been put to bed—and announced that if Baron
would confine his activities to the house for a few days longer, he
might safely get up.
CHAPTER XXV
BONNIE MAY SEES TWO FACES AT A WINDOW
It was at luncheon, and Baron was down-stairs for the first time
since his accident.
“It’s just like having Johnny come back from the war,” observed
Bonnie May, as the family took their places at table. Baron, Sr., was
not there. He usually spent his midday hour at his club.
“From the war?—Johnny?” replied Baron. He stood by his chair an
instant, putting most of his weight on one foot.
“I mean, you can think of so many delicious things. We might believe
you were wounded, you know, coming home to see your wife and
daughter. As if the sentries had allowed you to come in for a little
while. They would be outside now, watching. Men with dirty faces
and heavy boots.”
“Yes, if I had a wife and daughter,” suggested Baron.
“Oh, well—Flora and I. Anyway, you’ve got a mother, and that’s the
real thing when there’s any soldier business.”
“It’s a real thing, anyway,” observed Mrs. Baron.
“Yes, of course,” admitted the child. She sighed deeply. How was
any one to get anywhere, with so many literal-minded people about?
She remembered the man in the play who said, “If we are
discovered, we are lost,” and the other who replied, “No, if we are
discovered, we are found.”
It was Mrs. Baron who returned to prosaic affairs.
“I’m going out this afternoon,” she said briskly. “I’ve been tied up
here in the house three Thursdays. There are people I simply must
call on.”
Bonnie May did not know why her heart should have jumped at this
announcement. Still, there seemed to be no end to the possibilities
for enjoyment in a big house when there wasn’t anybody to be
saying continuously: “You must,” or “You mustn’t.”
She wandered up-stairs as soon as luncheon was over, and in
Baron’s room she was overcome by an irresistible impulse.
She heard the houseman moving about in the next room, and the
thought occurred to her that she had never seen the houseman’s
room. She had never even spoken to the houseman. There was
something quite mysterious about the fact that he always kept to
himself.
Mrs. Shepard had assured her on one occasion that Thomason
never had a word to say to anybody—that he was a perverse and
sullen creature.
Now it occurred to her that possibly Mrs. Shepard’s estimate might
lack fairness. Anyway, it would be interesting to find out for herself. It
would be a kind of adventure.
She tapped lightly on Thomason’s door.
After an interval of silence, during which one might have thought that
the room itself was amazed, there was the sound of heavy feet
approaching.
The door opened and Thomason stood on the threshold. Bonnie
May had never been near enough to him really to see him before.
Now she discovered that he had quaint creases about his mouth and
eyes, and that his eyes were like violets. It was as if you had
dropped some violets accidentally, and they had fallen in a strange
place. There was a childish expression in Thomason’s eyes, and it
occurred to Bonnie May that possibly he was afraid of people.
It seemed to her quite shocking that the little man should remain by
himself always, because he was afraid of mingling with people.
Thomason’s eyes were very bright as he looked at her. Then he
winked slowly, to facilitate thought. He was thinking: “She’s the one
who does whatever she pleases.” Despite his habits of seclusion,
Thomason was by no means oblivious to the life that went on in the
mansion.
“May I come in?” asked Bonnie May. She did not worry about the
absence of a spontaneous welcome. “It’s an adventure,” she was
thinking.
Thomason laboriously turned about, with a slight list to leeward, and
ambled to the middle of the room, where he sat down on a bench.
He took up a pair of steel-rimmed glasses from which one temple
had been broken and replaced by a piece of twine. He slipped the
twine over his head and adjusted the glasses on his nose. It seemed
necessary for him to sit quite still to keep this contrivance in place.
When he reached around to his bed for a coat, which he had
evidently been mending, he held his head and body as rigid as
possible.
Bonnie May advanced into the room, her hands clasped before her,
her eyes quite freely surveying her surroundings.
“What a quaint setting!” she observed.
Thomason jerked his needle through a tough place and pulled it out
to arm’s length, holding his head with painful sedateness, on account
of the glasses. He seemed afraid to glance to left or right. He made
no reply at all.
“I’ve been learning to use a needle, too,” she confided, thinking that
he did not do it very skilfully.
Thomason held his head as far back as possible and closed one
eye. He was thus handicapping himself, it appeared, in order to get a
better view of the work he held on his knee.
“Would you like me to hold it, while you go across the room to look?”
she asked.
Thomason suddenly became quite rigid. It was as if his works had
run down. He was thinking about what Bonnie May had said.
Then, “Women!” he muttered, and the works seemed to have been
wound up again.

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Key Questions and Case Studies

7.1 What Factors Influence Weather?

SCIENCE FOCUS 7.1

SCIENCE FOCUS 7.2

Smaller Lecture Courses

Term Paper Research Topics

3. Fragile ecosystems: deserts; tropical forests; tundra.

5. Global: Montreal Protocol; Kyoto Protocol.

2. Why are rainforests more diverse than other forests?

5. Why are grasslands well-suited for raising crops?

Activities and Projects

Suggested Answers to End-of-Chapter Questions

The three scientific principles of sustainability are:

2. What are the driest months in each of these areas?

3. What is the coldest month in the tropical grassland?

4. What is the warmest month in the temperature grassland?

Answers to Google Earth Activity

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