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Boreal forest near Shovel Point in Tettegouche State Park, along the northern shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota.. A boreal ecosystem is an ecosystem with a subarctic climate located in the Northern Hemisphere, approximately between 50° and 70°N latitude.
Taiga or tayga (/ ˈ t aɪ ɡ ə / TY-gə; Russian: тайга́, IPA:), also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces, and larches. The taiga, or boreal forest, is the world's largest land biome. [1]
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]
The Boreal forest and its alpine cousins are host to a wide variety of deer, ranging from the large moose to the whitetail deer. All of these large herbivores prefer the cool forest lest they overheat in the sun, but all need open land on which to graze. Of the deer, moose are perhaps best adapted to wetlands and thrive in the boggy boreal forest.
A hemiboreal forest has some characteristics of a boreal forest to the north, and also shares features with temperate-zone forests to the south. A significant number of nut species, such as aspens, oaks, maples, ash trees, birches, beeches, hazels, and hornbeams, can be found here.
60% of the land in the European Union part of the region is covered by forest, but most of this is commercial plantings. Less than 5-10% of the forest is old growth. The typical western taiga forest contains Norway spruce (Picea abies) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) growing on shallow soil covered in moss, lichen and ericaceous shrubs. [1]
Most of Quebec's coniferous boreal forest grows on the Canadian Shield. [3] The Appalachians form less acidic and more fertile soils, still rocky, but with less sand and more silt. In the Eastern Townships the forests are mostly deciduous, but the forests of the Bas-Saint-Laurent and the Gaspé Peninsula are mostly conifers. [3]
The coniferous forest goes by many names, including: Boreal forest, fir-spruce forest, the North Woods, and the taiga. It is noted in New England for its "harsh" conditions such as cold, subarctic temperatures, a short growing period, sandy-gravely acidic soil, and a high rate of leeching of nutrients out of the soil.