Temperate Hardwood Forest
By: Gisselle Quiroga and Layla Fiedler
Temperate Hardwood Forest
Temperate Hardwood forest is a light Upland hardwood forest is a well-developed, closed-canopied forest dominated by deciduous (Of a tree or a shrub) shardwood trees on mesic soils in areas sheltered from fire. It typically has a diverse (showing a great deal of variety of very different) assemblage of deciduous and evergreen tree species in the canopy and midstory(layer of vegetation in a forest that consists of those trees whose height)
The way Temperate hardwood forest would keep clean:
Light gap succession is the driving force behind tree recruitment in upland hardwood forest and can happen at many different scales from single tree sized gaps to larger canopy(an ornamental cloth covering hung or held up over something, especially a throne or bed) openings
Representative Florida hardwood Hammocks
- Hammock In the Red hills
- Goldhead Branch State park
- Little Salt Spring Myakka River State Park
- Everglades National Park...ECT
Interesting thing about Temperate Hardwood Forest
As you can see, most of the clouds accumulate along the equator. This is what scientists call a low-pressure zone. (Clouds just can’t handle high pressure situations.) Low-pressure zones are regions of high precipitation. If you watch carefully, you can spot another low-pressure zone in the temperate latitudes.
Abiotic
- Soil
- Rocks
- Water
- Sinlight
- Air
- Rain
- Hills
- Temperature
- Air Masses
- Climate
Biotic
- Decidious Trees
- Birch Trees
- Oak Trees
- Eastern Chipmunk
- Red Tailed Hawk
- Least Weasle
- White-Tailed Deer
- Coyote
- Carpet Moss
- Lady Fern
- Common Lime
What does Deciduous mean?
The term deciduous refers to the plant’s ability to lose it’s leaves when times get tough. For example, some species of trees and shrubs in the chaparral are called drought-deciduous, which means that they lose their leaves in the dry season to conserve (especially an environmentally or culturally important place or thing) water.
Deciduous trees in temperate forests lose their leaves in the fall to better survive winter conditions like extreme cold and reduced daylight. For a more detailed explanation of how trees lose and regrow their leaves, check out Rob and Jonas’ video on plant hormones here!
The ability for a tree to lose its leaves to conserve energy is a useful but costly adaptation. As opposed to evergreen trees, deciduous trees have to regrow thousands of leaves every year. This requires the plant to take precious nutrients from the soil to make them. In some temperate regions (area or division, especially part of a country or the world having definable characteristics but not always fixed boundaries), if the soil is too dry or nutrient poor to afford the cost of new leaves, the populations of plants change to suit the environment. For example, in many temperate regions of the United States, the soil is too sandy and nutrient poor to support many deciduous trees and evergreen trees are a big part of the forest. In areas like this, we call it a “temperate broadleaf mixed deciduous forest”. Yes, the names can get complicated.