5.1 The landscape and biome levels

Traditionally, living organisms and biocenoses are utilized to characterize and classify landscapes and natural zones. Designations such as rain forest, savanna, desert, macchia, broad-leaved forest, taiga and tundra - to mention only a few examples - are associated not only with pictures of the structure and dynamics of the vegetation, but also with a variety of other information on climate, geology, geomorphology, soils, water, fauna and the role played by human beings within this system as well as the possibilities for utilization of such landscapes. There is no need to define these aspects more precisely. It is nevertheless important to point out here that fundamental misunderstandings can arise if what is known about a familiar biome is transferred uncritically to another, such has often been done during the last centuries and decades by European colonists and their descendants, e.g. regarding the agricultural use of soils on which tropical rain forests are able to thrive (WEISCHET 1980; IUCN 1983; ENGELHARDT and FITTKAU 1984).