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NORTH AMERICA DESERT CHARACTERISTICS

Soils Vegetation Fauna Climate

The soils and desert are ardisols.

Cross textured soils are on the lower slopes of mountains

Sparse vegetation extremes of heat with little organic matter.

Some plants are able to store water.

Cactus and the yucca family especially the joshua tree

In north america desert no large animals are found

Camels were introduced in the 1800s the project was failure

Major animals : Wolf, Grey fox and coyote

Coyotes are light in colour this allows them to absorb less heat.

Deserts are formed due to cold currents and rain shadow affect

30-40 degrees heat

They’re between 30 -40 degrees south and north of the equator

The climate is not between 17-30 degrees

Sanara 25 -35 degrees

Low rain fall of 125mm

Fine soils basin areas make deep soil cover

Saguaro cactus found in Sonora desert.

Source water at great depths

Elephant tree has long roots

Some plants are poisonous

The cveosote bush has a vile odour tap roots fanout to 50 square yards of surface oil.

Ephemerals/ wild flowers

The jack rabbit has really long ears which helps him regulate heat.

Birds: Owls, roadrunner which save energy running rather than flying

The change in winter temperature dropping to 5 degrees

Total precipitation of 110mm in winter time.

Absence of cloud and lack of vegetation growth

As a result having low precipitation

Poorly developed having more mineral matter due to the lack of organic matter.

Poor plant growth contain little humas causing soils to be light and grey.

Reptiles: Snakes and lizards

Great variety of insects

Grass hopper, caterpillar, beetles, flies and butterflies

Most disappear underground during the intense heat of the day and reappear in the cool of the day.

These is intense evaporation of water from aridisols which bring dissolved minerals.

Calcification is the main process whereby nutrients leach down into the soil.

This causes a build up of a solid layer of calcite making it almost impermeable

Salinisatio is the process where dissolved salts

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