Temperature and moisture
Answers are for parents and teachers.
1
Sort into xerophyte, mesophyte or hygrophyte: saxaul, wheat, marsh sedge, aloe, apple, water mint.
Xerophytes: saxaul (sclerophyte), aloe (succulent); mesophytes: wheat, apple; hygrophytes: marsh sedge, water mint.
2
How do birds and mammals maintain body temperature? Write three mechanisms.
A four-chambered heart and high metabolism, feathers/fur and subcutaneous fat, sweating with vessel dilation, and shivering.
3
Why do some desert animals shift activity to dusk and night in summer?
To avoid daytime heat and water loss; nights are cooler and more humid.
4
Insect development speeds up 2× per 10 °C. At 15 °C full development takes 24 days. How many days at 25 °C?
12
5
Why are most plants in the Kyzylkum not green in summer, while spring is a green carpet?
In spring there is moisture and ephemerals grow quickly; in the hot dry summer they rest as seeds or bulbs.