Taiga Soil
The taiga is the largest land biome on earth, it covers some of Canada, Alaska, Europe, Asia, and most of Russia. The word "taiga" is Russian for the forest, but the word is used in the U.S. as well as Canada and some parts of Europe. The winters are cold, and the summers are wet and sometimes warm. The purpose of this paper is to describe the soil in the taiga.
First of all, the soil is nutrient poor, thin, and acidicPodzolization occurs as a result of the acid soil solution produced under needleleaf trees. The main soil order associated with the taiga is spodosol. This means that only a certain amount of animals and plants can live there.There is usually only one or a few species of plants in a stand in a particular area. These include different species of spruce, pine, or fir, and often there is a little undergrowth. There may also occasionally be deciduous species present, such as oak, birch, willow, or alder, in a particularly wet or disturbed area. Due to the soil changes in each area of the taiga, there are three main ecosystems; bogs occur in poorly drained, glacial depressions. Sphagnum moss forms a spongy mat over ponded water. Growing on this mat are species of the tundra such as cottongrass and shrubs of the heath family. Black spruce and larch ring the edge. Pine forests, in North America dominated by the jack pine,occur on sandy outwash plains and former dune areas. These are low nutrient, droughty substrates not tolerated by spruce and fir. Larch forests claim the thin, waterlogged substrate in level areas underlain with permafrost. These forests are open with understories of shrubs, mosses and lichens.
Secondly, due to the limited abiotic species diversity, there is small biotic diversity. Animal populations are mainly seed-eating squirrels and jays, herbivores such as leaf eating insects and larger browsing animals such as deer, moose, elk, snowshoe hare, and beavers. The typical predators for this area are grizzly bears, wolves, lynxes and wolverines. Many have thick coats of fur to insulate against the cold, and some hibernate.
United States Department of the interior Fish And Wildlife Service, . North American Fauna. 2012.
happens because the roots emit pigments of red color into the soil which then runs into the water. Even though the amount of red pigment released is very little, due to the large amount of cedar trees in the Pine forests, the water is affected. The main crops of the Pine Barrens include blueberries and cranberries. There are also many rare plants that can be found in the Pinelands. One of these is the pitcher plant which is related to the Venus Fly Trap. Plants such as these have an influence on how nitrogen is depleted in the Pine Barrens and also on how the Pine “Barrens” got there name, nothing like vegetables grow there. The pitcher plant helps prevent pollution from entering the lakes as well as help in preventing flooding. The lakes in the Pine forest are home to the tree frog. These forests are also home to many other animals like cranes, water snakes, turtles, salamanders, and other frogs.
There are 10 different ecosystems which are Pineywoods, Gulf Prairies and Marshes, Post Oak Savanna, Blackland Prairies, Cross Timbers and Prairies, South Texas Plains, Edwards Plateau, Rolling Plains, High Plains, and Trans-Pecos. The area extends into Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. “The terrain is rolling with lower, wetter bottomlands that grow hardwood trees such as elm, mesquite and ash. This region is home to a variety of plants and animals that like woodlands and shorelines.” (Texas Parks and wildlife, n.d.)
The habitat is also made up of trees with nuts and bushes with berries. Black Bears are omnivores so they eat these along with other small animals. They are opportunist when it comes to food. Mostly bears eat vegetation during the spring but they will eat mainly anything they encounter. During the summer the bears eat salmon out of the rivers if they can catch it. If they can’t catch any they mainly survive off of berries, mainly blueberries, ants, grubs, and other insects. In the fall their diet starts to shift and they start to save up food for winter. They are also known to eat newborn moose calves during the winter when food is scarce.
The vegetation is mostly trees. There are many types of trees, Some of the trees are coniferous trees and deciduous. It is all scattered in the southern part of the Canadian Shield. The forests are all mixed with birch trees, aspen trees, tamarisk trees, black and white spruce trees, willow trees, hemlock trees, pine trees and balsam fir trees. The mixed forests are beautiful in the fall when the leaves of the deciduous trees change color.
In many areas, the deer have adapted to eat primarily agricultural crops (crops grown by humans). In many parts of the country, a deer’s diet may consist of up to 50% farm-grown corn. Obviously the deer eat some native foods, such as some trees and bushes, particularly buck brush and rose, but along with small amounts of dogwood, chokecherry, plum, red cedar, pine, and many other species of plants. Forbs, particularly sunflowers, are important, however grasses and sedges are used only briefly in spring and fall. White-tailed deer are the largest game animal in North America.
Sugar pines are found in a variety of places including moist, steep, north, east and south facing slopes. They tend to like deep, well drained soils that have a slight to neutral acidic level. While these trees can and do grow on steep and rugged land, the best growth occurs on gentle terrain at middle elevations in sandy to clay-like soils. These sugar pines grow from sea level up to a maximum of about 10,000 feet. The ele...
The taiga is also known as boreal forest and is mainly distinguishable due to its abundance of carnivorous forests that are primarily made up of conifer or cone-bearing trees (NP, UC Santa Barbara). Three of the four most common conifers are evergreens, namely spruce, fir, and pine. The fourth conifer is the tamarack, also known as the larch, which is a deciduous tree. Other types of deciduous trees that can occasionally be found in the taiga include oak, birch, willow, and alder trees. The taiga does not feature a wide variety of plant life in comparison with other biomes due to its harsh climate; thin, acidic, and nutrient-lacking soil; and rocky terrain.
Many old-growth forests across the landscape of northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan contain a mixture of tree species rather than a monoculture. Many researchers have put forward ideas to explain the competition and co-existence of tree species in such communities. A theory explaining competition and co-existence between two species is gap regeneration. Gap regeneration is when a gap is created upon death of a plant individual and a new individual, sometimes of the same species as died and sometimes not dependent on environmental heterogeneity, takes its place (Kenneth Lertzman). Canopy gaps during gap regeneration can be explained by either reciprocal replacement or habitat preference . In a reciprocal replacement, seedlings of one species would be found predominately under large trees ...
The tundra artic plains completely cover most of the earth’s lands north of the coniferous forest belt. The tundra’s ecosystem is very sensitive. It doesn’t have the ability to restore itself. Controlled by sedge, heath, willow, moss, and lichen. Plains that are pretty much alike, called alpine tundra, occur above the timberline in the high mountains of the world.
Coyotes and bears are a common sight in the woods. These animals, along with others, are predators that help to control deer population but also decrease the amount of land allowed to the deer. In Western NC, deer rates have fallen and bag limits have been reduced. In Pennsylvania, biologists have conducted a lengthy study to determine fawn mortality and predation. Predators killed 46% of fawns, (Hart). A study about coyotes in Ohio found that even though they kill numerous fawns, the population of deer continues to grow, (Hart). It would be critical to maintain...
In the last decade, from the Rockies to New England and the Deep South, rural and suburban areas have been beset by white-tailed deer gnawing shrubbery and crops, spreading disease and causing hundreds of thousands of auto wrecks. But the deer problem has proved even more profound, biologists say. Fast-multiplying herds are altering the ecology of forests, stripping them of native vegetation and eliminating niches for other wildlife. ' 'I don 't want to paint deer as Eastern devils, ' ' said Dr. McShea, a wildlife biologist associated with the National Zoo in Washington, ' 'but this is indicative of what happens when an ecosystem is out of whack. ' ' The damage is worse than anyone expected, he and other scientists say. Higher deer densities have affected growth, survival, and reproduction of many plant species which have aesthetic, economic or ecological value. In some cases, many species of trees have also been shown to have reduced growth as a result of high deer density (Environmental Benefits of Hunting, 1). Deer prefer certain plant species over others and frequently feed on economically valuable tree species. For example, they prefer oak and sugar maple seedlings, as well as acorns, over less palatable species like American Beech and striped maple. Thus, less marketable species are more likely to survive to maturity,
All soils at La Selva are derived from volcanic parent material. This material came primarily from eroded lava flows, although some material was carried in lahars. At higher elevations, soil parent material consists of lava weathered in place. Both alluvial and colluvial deposits cover the lower elevations, however, which include river terraces of various ages. Mos...
Tundra is the coldest of all the biomes. Tundra comes from the Finnish word tunturia, meaning treeless plain. It is noted for its frost-molded landscapes, extremely low temperatures, little precipitation, poor nutrients, and short growing seasons. Dead organic material functions as a nutrient pool. The two major nutrients are nitrogen and phosphorus. Nitrogen is created by biological fixation, and phosphorus is created by precipitation. Tundra is separated into two types: arctic tundra and alpine tundra.
Sikes, Roberts. and William L. Gannon. "Guidelines of the American Society of Mammalogists for the Use of Wild Mammals in Research." Journal of Mammalogy 92.1 (Feb. 2011): 235-253. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 5 Oct. 2011.