The Taiga
Taigas are found in many regions of the world. The taigas in Eurasia extend across Sweden, Finland, Russia, and Siberia. They run almost to the shores of the Pacific and Bering sea. In North America, the taiga goes eastward from Alaska to Canada, and Newfoundland. The taiga in the United States runs south to Minnesota, Michigan, and northern New England.
The weather in taiga changes with the season. The winters are long, cold, and snowy. These forests have little precipitation. In the summer the days are very long. There are no daily temperature changes, and the seasons change gradually. It is amazing that the animals and trees can survive a climate so severe. At the northern edge of the taiga, few species of trees have evolved a fitness to the climate.
In the taiga there are usually around four layers. They are the evergreen stratum, a shrub stratum, a layer of scattered herbacous plants, and a low moss and lichen layer. This layer is made up of protists and fungi. Bacteria and mushrooms are also found on a lot of the forest floor. Bacteria is in the kingdom monera and mushrooms are in the kingdom fungi. Some organisms in the kingdom animalia are the moose, black bear, grouse, jumping spider, and earthworms.
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Earthworms are found in the phylum Annelida and jumping spiders are found in the phylum Arthropoda. The moose and the black bear are found in the class Mammalia and the grouse is found in the class Aves. In the phylum Annelida, the species are segmented worms that have a digestive system and an enclosed circulatory system. In the phylum Arthropoda the organisms have an exoskeleton, jointed appendages, segmented bodies, and undergo metamorphosis. In the class Aves, scales cover the feet and legs and feathers cover most of the body. The organisms have strong lungs and a four-chambered heart. In the class Mammalia organisms have fat, hair, feed young with milk, and use lungs for respiration.
A blue grouse, which is in class Aves, is scientifically called Dendragapus obcorus. A moose, which is in phylum Mammalia, is called Alces alces. The jumping spider is called Phidippus audas. The earthworm is called Lumbricus terrestris.
Many organisms are adapted to survive in the taiga. One example is the moose. The large structure of the moose helps it to straddle saplings, bending them over in order to eat tender shoots. They also grow large and strong antlers and hooves for fighting when they need to. In the taiga the black spruce has adapted to the conditions of the bogs called muskegs. A muskeg is a bog in North America commonly having sphagnum, sedge, and sometimes stunted black spruce.
An environmental issue in the taiga happens to be an environmental issue in many forests. It is deforestation. Ever since agriculture began around 11,000 years ago, people have been clearing forests for farms. Forest fires, industrial pollution, and paper use have demolished most of the population of trees in our world. This decreases the amount of oxygen in the air through photosynthesis, and forest areas decrease. Less carbon dioxide is taken up and more is released into the air.
An example of symbiosis is moss and the redwood tree. The moss grows on the tree to protect it and the tree houses the moss. This is an example of mutualism.
