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Temperate Forest!
by Paul Wittle

Contents!

1. Location

2. Climate

3. Plants

4. Animals

Temperate forest is more commonly know as DECIDUOUS WOODLAND. It is native to the UK infact so you probably know a fair amount about it.

Location

• Its full range covers northwest Europe, central and eastern Europe, eastern North America and parts of Asia, particularly northern China, Korea and northern Japan.
• Many of the forests have been felled to make room for agriculture and settlement.

As always try to remember some examples and if you live in this biome you may have some local issues relating to the deforestation of these woods which are popular when answering questions in exams!

The Climate

• There are marked seasons with cold winters and warm summers.
• Precipitation is spread evenly all year, showing no obvious wet or dry seasons.

Plants

• Natural vegetation is broad-leafed deciduous trees such as oak, ash, beech and elm in Europe, and maple in North America.
• There are four layers to the forests (like there is in a rainforest, prehaps you could compare the two biomes):

1. The tree or canopy layer --- trees such as beech and ash can be up to 40 metres high.
2. The shrub layer or sub-canopy --- this is where you find young saplings and shrubs such as hazel and holly.
3. The herb layer --- here you find smaller plants that don't have wood stems, they form a thick ground cover and examples are brambles, ferns, grasses, bluebells and ivy.
4. The ground layer close to the surface --- you find a variety of fungi, mosses and lichens in this layer.

• Trees are adapted to the climate by shedding their leaves in the winter months. We call this idea of shedding leaves "deciduous". This process helps to reduce the water loss from transpiration from the leaves.

Animals

• Mammals, birds and insects are all supported by these forests. There are others but these three are the most common.
• The carnivores include foxes, weasels, owls and hawks and in North America, black bears. (Bears use to live in Europe to but are very rare or exstict now!)
• The herbivores include animals such as rabbits, mice and many species of birds and insects. (note - rabbits were introduced by humans with devastating effects which led to humans introducing the illness mitamitosis. This illness killed about 95% of the population, but the five percent left so imune and bred. The population rose rapidly leaving us with todays rabbits which are mostly imune to the illness.)
• Some of the animals adapt to the cold winters by hibernating. Some others, particularly birds, migrate, but most are able to live throughout the year in the forests.

So that is the temperate deciduous woodland biome and I hope to add more info about the infulences of humans on a biome and the process of sucession. (some is A-level standard but the more knowledge you have, the better you will do!)

If you have exams coming up then I wish you GOOD LUCK!

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