Much like the flights of craft beer at a brewery that allow one to take a taste of all that the brewery has to offer, we begin our flight over Earth’s biosphere to understand a little about each of Earth’s biomes and the biodiversity within. It seems apropos in fact to call it a flight, especially as the biosphere extends from the ocean floor up to an altitude of approximately 8 km (5 mi) into the atmosphere. In today’s lecture, we will learn what biomes are and about the vegetation we use to identify them.