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Every spring in late April, Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the site of the week-long annual spring wildflower pilgrimage [2] to celebrate this diversity. The park is also the site of the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory [ 3 ] to inventory all the living organisms in the park.
It has an unusually diverse tree flora, with as many as 30 tree species at a single site including many relics of the ancient forest that once covered North America more widely. Along with the forest there is a rich undergrowth of ferns, fungi, herbaceous plants, shrubs and small trees as well as areas of glade, heath, shale, peat bog and ...
In terms of biodiversity, the only comparable temperate deciduous forest regions in the world are in central China, Japan, and in the Caucasus Mountains.Both the Appalachians (along with the neighbouring Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests ecoregion) and central China contain relict habitats of an ancient forest that was once widespread over the Northern Hemisphere.
The understory is the underlying layer of vegetation in a forest or wooded area, especially the trees and shrubs growing between the forest canopy and the forest floor. Plants in the understory comprise an assortment of seedlings and saplings of canopy trees together with specialist understory shrubs and herbs.
A leaf (pl.: leaves) is a principal appendage of the stem of a vascular plant, [1] usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis.Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", [2] [3] while the leaves, stem, flower, and fruit collectively form the shoot system. [4]
Additionally, mangrove forests function as essential nurseries for many commercially important fish species, providing a sheltered environment rich in nutrients during their early life stages. The decomposition of leaves and organic matter in the water further enhances the nutrient content, supporting overall ecosystem productivity.
An important interaction in forest ecosystems is the mycorrhizal network, which consists of fungi and plants that share symbiotic relationships. [18] Mycorrhizal networks have been shown to increase the uptake of important nutrients, especially ones which disperse slowly into the soil like phosphorus . [ 19 ]
Mangrove plants require a number of physiological adaptations to overcome the problems of low environmental oxygen levels, high salinity, and frequent tidal flooding.Each species has its own solutions to these problems; this may be the primary reason why, on some shorelines, mangrove tree species show distinct zonation.