Breathtaking Assemblage of Living Organisms

The state’s astounding variety of biotic communities with their diverse collections of plants and animals is examined in this chapter. The living laboratory we call California is so enormous and biologically diverse that the study of it poses some problems: Where do we start? How do we organize our study? How do we classify the various living environments? Of course, these same problems confront botanists, zoologists, and biogeographers around the world. However, scientists studying California’s plants and animals have engaged in exceptionally fascinating and controversial debates involving these problems and other related issues. Their debates often revolve around the diversity, connections, and change that are major themes throughout this book. The diversity of California’s plants and animals is in large part a result of the state’s wide range of latitude and elevation and its position on North America’s subtropical and mid-latitude west coast. A Breathtaking Assemblage of Living Organisms