Temperate forests are typical of all European continent,
the Eastern region of Asia (in special, Chinese and Japan)
and North America.
Also are finded in tempered areas of South America. Great
part of them has been destroyed for the wood obtaining and
the advantage of the ground with farming aims.
The vegetation is predominantly arboreal, although also there
are shrubs and herbaceous plants. Within this biome are distinguished
two formation: the forest caducifolio and the one of coniferous.
The average temperature in temperate forests is 50° F.
Summers are mild, and average about 70° F, while winter
temperatures are often well blow freezing. The average yearly
precipitation is 30-60 inches.
This precipitation falls throughout the year, but in the
winter it falls as snow. The aggravating factor is the water,
because a period of the year exists in which the precipitations
are smaller. To be remote of the tropical zone is subject
to the change of the stations.
The development of shrub and herbaceous vegetation in this
biome facilitated by the falling leaf in winter, that allows
that the solar rays reach the ground during the rest of the
year. The sedimentation of dead leaves contributes to mineral
salts and organic matter, that fertilize the ground.
Another important characteristic of the temperate forest
is the diversity of animal species: birds, rodents, red deers,
wild boars and bears, among others, in the North hemisphere,
and in general, smaller species that occupy equivalent ecological
niches in the south. The herbivorous consume grass, fruits
and berries, and serve as food to the pregivers.
The man finds in this biome an important source of income.
Of the reserves of the forest raw materials for the industries;
nutritional, lumber, wastebasket and pharmaceutics are extracted.
The forests also serve like containment means and regulation
of the water volumes, conserves the quality of grounds and
it protect them of the erosion. In another aspect, they contribute
to maintain the heat balance of the Earth when absorbing present
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
In the temperate forest coexist, among other species,
birds, rodents, foxes, red deers and bears, consequently,
the cutting of trees, not only it affects vegetal species
sometimes but animals, also causing extinction risks.
The ground of the temperate
forest has a high content of organic matter that is fundamentally
accumulated in the first two undercoat, which is demonstrated
by the dark colour of the same ones.
GEOGRAPHIC
DISTRIBUTION OF THE FORESTS
The caducifolio forest
In the North hemisphere, the caducifolio forest is
located around the 50 ' of North latitude.
It is characterized by a mixed vegetal formation and
by the abundance of trees that fall during the cold
season. The main arboreal species are the oaks, the
brown, the linden trees, the maples, the elm trees,
the hazels and the cherry trees.
In the caducifolio forest lives red wild boars, squirrels
and red deers, that are herbivorous, and savage foxes,
bears and other carnivorous mammals. Between the birds
are cuckoos, red headed and doves that feeds on seeds
and insects, and others of plundering, like the sparrow
hawks, that look for small birds.
An example of this biome is the forests Andean-patagonik
that occupy an extension of 63,000 km2 between Argentine
and Chile. The principal trees are the lenga, the ñire,
the araucaria, the coihue, the larch and the arrayán;
in the chilean slope, very humid, lichens and fungi
also abound. Between the animals they are the red fox,
the pudú, huemul or patagonik red deer, the cóndor,
and others, some of them in extinction danger.
The coniferous forest
The coniferous forest extends between the limit of
the tundra and the 50 ' of N latitude, in Europe, Asia
and North America.
It is developed with precipitations of about 500 annual
mm. The flora and the fauna are similar to both sides
of the Atlantic. 150 varieties of pines exist, that
grow in poor grounds.
The firs, however, are preferably in rich and humid
lands. Other arboreal species are the larches and the
cypresses; the birches grow more in cold areas, near
the tundra.
The ground is always covered by leaves and branches
fallen that offer feeding to the herbivorous, like the
reindeer.
Between the carnivorous are the marta,
that hunts
on the branches of the trees, and the lynx, a feline that
generally lives in the mountainous areas.
