Temperate forest

Temperate forest, vegetation type with a more or less continuous canopy of broad-leaved trees. Such forests occur between approximately 25° and 50° latitude in both hemispheres. Toward the polar regions they grade into boreal forests, which are dominated by evergreen conifers, so that mixed forests containing both deciduous and coniferous trees occupy intermediate areas. Covering approximately 10 million square km (about 3.9 million square miles) of Earth’s land area, temperate forests usually are classified into two main groups: deciduous and evergreen.

Deciduous forests are found in regions of the Northern Hemisphere that have moist, warm summers and frosty winters—primarily eastern North America, eastern Asia, and western Europe. In contrast, evergreen forests—excepting boreal forests, which are covered in boreal forest—typically grow in areas with mild, nearly frost-free winters. They fall into two subcategories—broad-leaved forests and sclerophyllous forests. (Sclerophyllous vegetation has small, hard, thick leaves.) The former grow in regions that have reliably high, year-round rainfall; the latter occur in areas with lower, more erratic rainfall. Broad-leaved forests dominate the natural vegetation of New Zealand; they are significantly represented in South America, eastern Australia, southern China, Korea, and Japan; and they occur in less well-developed form in small areas of southeastern North America and southern Africa. Sclerophyllous forests occur particularly in Australia and in the Mediterranean region.

Origin

Temperate forests originated during the period of cooling of world climate that began at the start of the Cenozoic Era (65.5 million years ago). As global climates cooled, climatic gradients steepened with increasing latitude, and areas with a hot, wet climate became restricted to equatorial regions. At temperate latitudes, climates became progressively cooler, drier, and more seasonal. Many plant lineages that were unable to adapt to new conditions became extinct, but others evolved in response to the climatic changes, eventually dominating the new temperate forests. In areas that differed least from the previously tropical environments—where temperate evergreen forests now grow—the greatest numbers of plant and animal species survived in forms most similar to those of their tropical ancestors. Where conditions remained relatively moist but temperatures dropped in winter, deciduous trees evolved from evergreen rainforest ancestors. In areas that became much more dry—though not to the extent that tree development was inhibited and only scrubland or desert environments were favoured—sclerophyllous trees evolved.

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During the rapid climatic fluctuations of the past two million years in which conditions alternated between dry, cold glacial states—the ice ages of some northern temperate regions—and warmer, moister interglacial intervals, tree species of temperate forests had to migrate repeatedly to remain within climates suitable for their survival. Such migration was carried out by seed dispersal, and trees that were able to disperse their seeds the farthest had an advantage. In the North American and European regions where ice-sheet development during glacial intervals was most extensive, the distances that had to be traversed were greatest, and many species simply died out. Extinctions occurred not only where migration distances were great but also where mountains or seas provided barriers to dispersal, as in southern Europe. Thus, many trees that were formerly part of the European temperate forests have become extinct in the floristically impoverished forest regions of western Europe and are restricted to small refuge areas such as the Balkans and the Caucasus. For example, buckeye (Aesculus) and sweet gum (Liquidambar) are two trees that no longer occur naturally in most parts of Europe, having disappeared during the climatic turmoil of the past two million years.

Human activities have had pronounced effects on the nature and extent of modern temperate forests. As long ago as 8,000 years, most sclerophyllous forests of the Mediterranean region had been cut over for timber or cleared to make space for agricultural pursuits. By 4,000 years ago in China the same process led to the removal of most broad-leaved and deciduous forests. In Europe of 500 years ago the original deciduous forests had disappeared, although they are remembered in nursery tales and other folklore as the deep, wild woods in which children and princesses became lost and in which dwarfs and wild animals lived.

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Ecosystems

The deciduous forests of North America had been cleared almost completely by the end of the 19th century. Australia and New Zealand experienced similar deforestation about the same time, although the earlier activities of pre-European peoples had had substantial impacts. The character of the Australian sclerophyllous forests changed in response to more than 38,000 years of burning by the Aboriginal people, and the range of these forests was expanded at the expense of broad-leaved forests. In New Zealand about half the forested area, which previously had covered almost the entire country, was destroyed by fire brought to the island by the Polynesian inhabitants who arrived 1,000 years before the Europeans.