Summary
This website has been developed in conjunction with the terrestrial-biozones website, the biosphere-images website and the biome-images website to provide site-specific information on the world's major biomes. These are large often global scale divisions of our planet's biosphere and can be divided into two major types.
Zonal Biomes - these are largely determined by macroclimatic factors and distributed in roughly latitudinal zones. In the World Biome Map all the biomes apart from the alpine biome are classed as zonal biomes or zonobiomes. Each zonal biome usually has a distinctive form of vegetation (physiognomy).
Azonal Biomes - these are usually on a smaller scale and largely infuenced by the local environmental factors and/or local soil types.
Engraved image from the book: A History of the Vegetable Kingdom (1874) by William Rhind
References
Peinado M, Aguirre J L, Delgadillo J, Macias M A. 2007. Zonobiomes, zonoecotones and azonal vegetation along the Pacific coast of North America M. Plant Ecology, 191:221–252
Walter H. 1985 Vegetation of the earth and ecological systems of the geobiosphere. 3rd edn. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.