TEMPERATE FOREST

What makes a Temperate Forest a unique habitat?

Temperate deciduous forest

The Temperate deciduous forest is a biome found in the eastern United States, Canada, Europe, China, Japan, North Korea and parts of Russia. A temperate deciduous forest consists of trees that lose their leaves every year. Some of these trees include oak, maple, beech, and elm. The temperate deciduous biome can be found on almost every continent.

Many commonly heard of animals live here. Some examples are bears, beavers, foxes, deer, and large birds of prey like red-tailed hawks. However, it is not that easy to live here. Many animals have had to adapt. For example, animals like bears and fox store up fat, and then sleep during the cold winters of the temperate deciduous forest. This is called hibernation. Others, like the red winged blackbird, migrate to the south to escape temperatures that are sometimes below zero. The climate is caused mainly because of wind in the solar atmosphere.

Temperate broadleaf forest

Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests are a temperate and humid biome. The typical structure of these forests include four layers. The upper most layer is the canopy which is composed of tall mature trees. Below the canopy is the three-layered, shade tolerant understory. The top layer of the understory is the sub-canopy which is composed of smaller mature trees, saplings, and suppressed juveniles canopy layer trees awaiting an opening in the canopy. Below the sub-canopy is the shrub layer, composed of low growing woody plants. Typically the lowest growing (and most diverse) layer is the ground cover or herbaceous layer.

Temperate coniferous forest

Temperate coniferous forest is a terrestrial biome found in temperate regions of the world with warm summers and cool winters and adequate rainfall to sustain a forest. In most Temperate coniferous forests, evergreen conifers predominate, while some are a mix of conifers and broadleaf evergreen trees and/or broadleaf deciduous trees. Temperate evergreen forests are common in the coastal areas of regions that have mild winters and heavy rainfall, or inland in drier climates or mountain areas. Many species of trees inhabit these forests including cedar, cypress, douglas-fir, fir, juniper, kauri, pine, podocarpus, spruce, redwood and yew. The understory also contains a wide variety of herbaceous and shrub species.

Structurally, these forests are rather simple, generally consisting of two layers: an overstory and understory. Some forests may support an intermediate layer of shrubs. Pine forests support an herbaceous understory that is generally dominated by grasses and herbaceous perennials, and are often subject to ecologically important wildfires.

Temperate rain forest

Temperate rain forests are coniferous or broadleaf forests that occur in the mid-latitudes in areas of high rainfall. Temperate rain forests may be predominantly coniferous (with deciduous trees in understory), broadleaf evergreen, or mixed forests with deciduous species, and occur in Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests and Temperate coniferous forests ecoregions. The temperate coniferous rain forests sustain the highest levels of biomass in any terrestrial ecosystem and are notable for trees of massive proportions, including Coast Redwoods, Coast Douglas-fir, Sitka Spruce, Alerce and Kauri. These forests are quite rare, occurring in small areas of Western North America, southwestern South America and northern New Zealand.

Temperate forests cover a large part of the globe, but temperate rain forests only occur in seven regions around the world; the Pacific temperate rain forests of North America, the Valdivian and Magellanic temperate rain forests of southwestern South America, the Colchian rain forests of the eastern Black Sea region (Turkey and Georgia), the New Zealand temperate rain forests, Tasmanian temperate rain forests, South Africa's Knysna-Amatole coastal forests, and pockets of rain forest in northwest Europe and southwest Japan's Taiheiyo evergreen forests. Also, there are forests similar to those in Japan in Taiwan's Montane forests of the Central Mountain Ranges along Eastern Taiwan's Pacific Coast. Scattered small pockets of temperate rain forest also exist along the Appalachian Mountains from northern Georgia to New England, British Columbia's Columbia Mountains, and in parts of Sakhalin Island, Manchuria and the Ussuri Region of the Russian Far East in Asia.

Would you like to know more about the Temperate Forest inhabitants?

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