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A boreal ecosystem is an ecosystem with a subarctic climate located in the Northern Hemisphere, approximately between 50° and 70°N latitude. These ecosystems are commonly known as taiga and are located in parts of North America, Europe, and Asia. [1] The ecosystems that lie immediately to the south of boreal zones are often called hemiboreal ...
The boreal forest/taiga supports a relatively small variety of highly specialized and adapted animals, due to the harshness of the climate. Canada's boreal forest includes 85 species of mammals, 130 species of fish, and an estimated 32,000 species of insects. [37] Insects play a critical role as pollinators, decomposers, and as a part of the ...
Fire is the dominant type of disturbance in boreal North America, but the past 30-plus years have seen a gradual increase in fire frequency and severity as a result of warmer and drier conditions. From the 1960s to the 1990s, the annual area burned increased from an average of 1.4 to 3.1 million hectares per year.
Within the European Union, the list of Natura 2000 sites in the Boreal Region was adopted in January 2005 and has since been updated several times. As of 2009 there were 6,266 Sites of Community Importance under the Habitats Directive covering more than 111,000 square kilometres (43,000 sq mi) and 1,165 Special Protection Areas under the Birds ...
Boreal forests occur in the more southern parts of the taiga ecoregion that spreads across the northern parts of the world.. Canada's boreal forest is a vast region comprising about one third of the circumpolar boreal forest that rings the Northern Hemisphere, mostly north of the 50th parallel. [1]
A biogeographic realm is the broadest biogeographic division of Earth's land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial organisms. They are subdivided into bioregions, which are further subdivided into ecoregions.
Throughout the Northern Hemisphere, the boreal forest covers 2.3 million square miles, a larger area than the remaining Brazilian Amazon rainforest. Although it is largely forest, the boreal forests include a network of lakes, river valleys, wetlands, peat lands and semi-open tundra. Black Spruce boreal forest, Copper River, Alaska.
The boreal forests in the interior of the continents grow on top of permafrost due to very cold winters (see drunken trees), though much of the boreal forest biome has patchy permafrost or lacks permafrost completely. The short (3–4 month) growing season in boreal forests is sustained by greater levels of rainfall than the tundra receives ...