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Taiga or tayga (/ ˈ t aɪ ɡ ə / TY-gə; Russian: тайга́, IPA:), also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces, and larches. The taiga, or boreal forest, is the world's largest land biome. [1]
Boreal forest near Shovel Point in Tettegouche State Park, along the northern shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota.. A boreal ecosystem is an ecosystem with a subarctic climate located in the Northern Hemisphere, approximately between 50° and 70°N latitude.
Boreal forests occur in the more southern parts of the taiga ecoregion that spreads across the northern parts of the world. Canada's boreal forest is a vast region comprising about one third of the circumpolar boreal forest that rings the Northern Hemisphere, mostly north of the 50th parallel. [1]
The ground cover in the ecoregion is 33% herbaceous cover, 15% shrubs, 19% open forest, 15% closed forest. Water bodies cover 18% of the region. [2] The characteristic trees are black spruce (Picea mariana), white spruce (Picea glauca), jack pine (Pinus banksiana) and tamarack (Larix laricina) .
The coniferous forest goes by many names, including: Boreal forest, fir-spruce forest, the North Woods, and the taiga. It is noted in New England for its "harsh" conditions such as cold, subarctic temperatures, a short growing period, sandy-gravely acidic soil, and a high rate of leeching of nutrients out of the soil.
The park covers an area of 8,920 square kilometres (3,440 sq mi) and became the second largest park in Ontario (after Polar Bear Provincial Park) and one of the world's largest boreal forest reserves following a major expansion in 1997 (it was expanded almost sixfold that year). [4]
The tropical domain has the largest proportion of the world's forests (45 percent), followed by the boreal, temperate and subtropical domains. More than half (54 percent) of the world's forests is in only five countries – the Russian Federation (20.1%), Brazil (12.2%), Canada (8.6%), the United States of America (7.6%) and China (5.4%).
60% of the land in the European Union part of the region is covered by forest, but most of this is commercial plantings. Less than 5-10% of the forest is old growth. The typical western taiga forest contains Norway spruce (Picea abies) and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) growing on shallow soil covered in moss, lichen and ericaceous shrubs. [1]