Temperate coniferous forests

Temperate Coniferous Forests

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Temperate coniferous forests

Temperate coniferous forest is a terrestrial biome

Biome

Biomes are Climateally and geographically defined areas of ecologically similar climatic conditions such as Community of plants, animals, and Soil biology, and are often referred to as ecosystems....
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

Evergreen

In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant having leaf all year round. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage for part of the year....
trees and/or broadleaf deciduous

Deciduous

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Temperate coniferous forest is a terrestrial biome

Biome

Evergreen

Deciduous

Deciduous means falling off at maturity or tending to fall off and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe....
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

Cedar

Cedar is a genus of coniferous trees in the plant family Pinaceae. They are most closely related to the Firs , sharing a very similar cone structure....
, cypress

Cupressaceae

The Cupressaceae or cypress family is a conifer family with worldwide distribution. The family includes 27 to 30 genera with about 130-140 species....
, douglas-fir

Douglas-fir

Douglas-fir is the English name applied in common to evergreen Pinophyta trees of the genus Pseudotsuga in the family Pinaceae. There are five species, two in western North America, one in Mexico, and two in eastern Asia....
, fir

Fir

Firs are a genus of between 45-55 species of evergreen Pinophyta in the family Pinaceae. All are trees, reaching heights of 10-80 m tall and trunk diameters of 0.5-4 m when mature....
, juniper

Juniper

Junipers are coniferous plants in the genus Juniperus of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on taxonomic viewpoint, there are between 50-67 species of juniper, widely distributed throughout the northern hemisphere, from the Arctic, south to tropical Africa in the Old World, and to the mountains of Central America....
, kauri, pine

Pine

Pines are Pinophyta trees in the genus Pinus, in the family Pinaceae. They make up the monotypic subfamily Pinoideae. There are about 115 species of pine, although different authorities accept between 105 and 125 species....
, podocarpus

Podocarpus

Podocarpus is a genus of conifers, the most numerous and widely distributed of the podocarp family Podocarpaceae. The 105 species of Podocarpus are evergreen shrubs or trees from 1-25 m in height....
, spruce

Spruce

A spruce is a tree of the genus Picea, a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the Family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal regions of the earth....
, redwood

Sequoia

Sequoia sempervirens is the sole living species of the genus Sequoia in the cypress family Cupressaceae . Common names include Coast Redwood and California Redwood ....
and yew

Taxaceae

The family Taxaceae, commonly called the yew family, includes three genera and about 7 to 12 species of coniferous plants, or in other interpretations , six genera and about 30 species....
. 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 grass

Grass

Grass is the common word that generally describes monocotyledonous green plants. The family Poaceae are the "true grasses" and include most plants grown as grains, for pasture, and for lawns ....
es and herbaceous perennials, and are often subject to ecologically important wildfires.

Temperate rain forest

Temperate rain forest

Temperate rainforests are coniferous or broadleaf forests that occur in the temperate zone and receive high rainfall....
s occur only in seven regions around the world: the Pacific temperate rain forests

Pacific temperate rain forests

The Pacific temperate rain forests of North America is the largest temperate rain forest ecoregion on the planet as defined by the World Wildlife Fund ....
of the Pacific Northwest

Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest is a region in the northwest of North America . There are several partially overlapping definitions but the term Pacific Northwest should not be confused with the Northwest Territory or the Northwest Territories of Canada....
, the Valdivian temperate rain forests

Valdivian temperate rain forests

The Valdivian temperate rain forests are a Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests terrestrial ecoregion located on the west coast of southern South America, lying mostly in Chile and extending into a small part of Argentina....
of southwestern South America

South America

South America is the southern continent of the Americas, situated entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere....
, the rain forests of New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous Islands of New Zealand, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands....
and Tasmania

Tasmania

Tasmania is an Australian island and States and territories of Australia of the same name. It is located south of the eastern side of the continent, being separated from it by Bass Strait....
, northwest Europe

Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
(small pockets in Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is the List of islands by area in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islet....
, Scotland

Scotland

conventional_long_name = ScotlandAlba|common_name= Scotland|image_flag = Flag of Scotland.svg|flag_width = 130px...
, Wales

Wales

native_name = Cymru|conventional_long_name = Wales|common_name = Wales|image_flag = Flag of Wales 2.svg|national_motto = ...
, Iceland

Iceland

Iceland, officially the Republic of Iceland , is an island country located in the North Atlantic Ocean between mainland Europe and Greenland....
and a somewhat larger area in Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula....
), southern Japan

Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
, and the eastern Black Sea

Black Sea

The Black Sea is an inland sea sea bounded by southeastern Europe, the Caucasus and the Anatolia and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean Sea and Aegean Seas and various straits....
-Caspian Sea

Caspian Sea

The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the List of lakes by area or a full-fledged sea. It has a surface area of 371,000 square kilometers and a volume of 78,200 cubic kilometers ....
region of Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwest Asia and Thrace in the Balkans region of Southern Europe....
and Georgia

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a transcontinental country in the Caucasus region, located at the dividing line between Europe and Asia. It is bordered by the Russia to the north, Azerbaijan to the east, Armenia to the south, and Turkey to the southwest....
to northern Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and formerly known internationally as Persian Empire until 1935, is a country in Central Eurasia, located on the northeastern shore of the Persian Gulf and the southern shore of the Caspian Sea....
. The moist conditions of temperate rain forests generally support an understory of moss

Moss

Mosses are small, soft plants that are typically 1?10 cm tall, though some species are much larger. They commonly grow close together in clumps or mats in damp or shady locations....
es, ecosystem and are notable for trees of massive proportions, including Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron gigantea), Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), Douglas-fir

Douglas-fir

Sitka Spruce

The Sitka Spruce is a large coniferous evergreen tree growing to 50?70 m tall, exceptionally to 100 m tall, and with a trunk diameter of up to 5 m, exceptionally to 6?7 m diameter....
(Picea sitchensis), Alerce

Alerce

Alerce is a Chilean town in the communes of Puerto Montt and Puerto Varas in Llanquihue Province, Los Lagos Region.External links ...
(Fitzroya cupressoides) and Kauri (Agathis australis). These forests are quite rare, occurring in small areas of North America

North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
, southwestern South America

South America

New Zealand

Klamath-Siskiyou forests

The Klamath-Siskiyou forests are a temperate coniferous forest terrestrial ecoregion in northwestern California and southwestern Oregon and is part of the ecoregion system establishe by the World Wildlife Fund ....
of northwestern California

California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
and southwestern Oregon

Oregon

Oregon is a U.S. state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The area was inhabited by many indigenous tribes before the arrival of traders, explorers and settlers....
is known for its rich variety of plant and animal species, including many endemic species.

Temperate coniferous forests

See also

External links