24. Climate and the Distribution of Life on Earth

Principles of Evolution, Ecology and Behavior (EEB 122)

This lecture provides an overview of the physical aspects of earth's biomes. Temperature, water, latitude, and altitude all come into play. Regions with similar levels of these climatic features tend to have similar life-forms living there. These same climatic features can also affect weather patterns, which in turn affect life by altering habitats and ecosystems. On a large enough scale, such as El Niño, these weather patterns can affect life all over the earth.

00:00 - Chapter 1. Introduction
04:05 - Chapter 2. Physics and Chemistry of Climate
22:01 - Chapter 3. Hurricanes and El Niño
30:37 - Chapter 4. Ocean-Coast Interactions
34:01 - Chapter 5. Biomes of the Earth
39:32 - Chapter 6. Climatic History

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses

This course was recorded in Spring 2009.