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[Biomes - Living Worlds] :: Temperate Rainforest ::
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After the glaciers from the Ice Age retreated from North America, Asia, Europe, the Alps, the Balkan Mountains, and the Pyrenees about 10, 000 years ago, seeds from a forest 180 million years old that survived the cold started to germinate. Almost all tree species survived the Ice Age. It did not take long for the temperate forest to return to its former beauty. Temperate forests, as the name implies, are found in the temperate zone. The temperate zone is where the climate and amount of sunlight can vary tremendously between each season. However, variations in the climate and sun make the temperate forest one of the most densely populated biomes on Earth. There are four different types of temperate forest: Deciduous forest, Evergreen forest, temperate rain forest, and mixed evergreen and deciduous forests. In deciduous forests, trees such as the maple, beech, basswood, oak, and hickory, along with many other types, thrive here. These trees lose their leaves in the fall and regrow them in the spring. In contrast, evergreen forest trees, found in North America, keep their needle like leaves all year long. Some of these trees include the spruce, fir, pine, and hemlock. The evergreen forests in the Southern Hemisphere, however, have eucalyptus trees. They have broad leaves like that of a deciduous tress, and are the dominating tree for that region. The temperate rain forest is home to the coastal redwoods found in California and Oregon. The coastal redwoods are the world's tallest growing trees. Lastly, mixed forest are comprised of both evergreen and deciduous trees. |