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Earth's life has also over time greatly diversified, allowing the biosphere to have different biomes, which are inhabited by comparatively similar plants and animals. [244] The different biomes developed at distinct elevations or water depths, planetary temperature latitudes and on land also with different humidity.
The classification of living things into animals and plants is an ancient one. Aristotle (384–322 BC) classified animal species in his History of Animals, while his pupil Theophrastus (c. 371 –c. 287 BC) wrote a parallel work, the Historia Plantarum, on plants. [7]
A diverse variety of living organisms (life forms) can be found in the biosphere on Earth, and properties common to these organisms—plants, animals, fungi, protists, archaea, and bacteria—are a carbon- and water-based cellular form with complex organization and heritable genetic information.
The entire Earth contains over 75 billion tons (150 trillion pounds or about 6.8×10 13 kilograms) of biomass (life), which lives within various environments within the biosphere. [52] Over nine-tenths of the total biomass on Earth is plant life, on which animal life depends very heavily for its existence. [53]
Biogeographic realms are characterized by the evolutionary history of the organisms they contain. They are distinct from biomes, also known as major habitat types, which are divisions of the Earth's surface based on life form, or the adaptation of animals, fungi, micro-organisms and plants to climatic, soil, and other conditions
Over 1.5 million living animal species have been described—of which around 1 million are insects—but it has been estimated there are over 7 million in total. Animals range in size from 8.5 millionths of a metre to 33.6 metres (110 ft) long and have complex interactions with each other and their environments, forming intricate food webs.
Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time.Organisms and biological communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, isolation and habitat area. [1]
Soil, also commonly referred to as earth, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support the life of plants and soil organisms. Some scientific definitions distinguish dirt from soil by restricting the former term specifically to displaced soil.