Taiga | |
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Jack London Lake at Kolyma, Russia
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The taiga is found throughout the high northern latitudes, between the tundra, and the temperate forest, from about 50°N to 70°N, but with considerable regional variation.
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Ecology | |
Biome | Terrestrial subarctic, humid |
Geography | |
Countries | Russia, Mongolia, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, United States, Canada, Scotland |
Climate type | Dfc, Dwc, Dsc |
Taiga (/ˈtaɪɡə/; Russian: тайга́; IPA: [tɐjˈɡa]; from Turkic) also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces and larches.
The taiga is the world's largest biome apart from the oceans. In North America it covers most of inland Canada and Alaska as well as parts of the extreme northern continental United States (northern Minnesota through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to Upstate New York and northern New England), where it is known as the Northwoods or "North woods". In Eurasia, it covers most of Sweden, Finland, much of Norway, some of the Scottish Highlands, some lowland/coastal areas of Iceland, much of Russia from Karelia in the west to the Pacific Ocean (including much of Siberia), and areas of northern Kazakhstan, northern Mongolia, and northern Japan (on the island of Hokkaidō). However, the main tree species, the length of the growing season and summer temperatures vary. For example, the taiga of North America mostly consists of spruces; Scandinavian and Finnish taiga consists of a mix of spruce, pines and birch; Russian taiga has spruces, pines and larches depending on the region, while the Eastern Siberian taiga is a vast larch forest.