Taiga

john shipka jacob norton david johnson anthony wilkerson

Taiga Biome

Weather patterns and tempters- The winters in the taiga biome are long, dark, and slow. In the winter it can get as cold as -76 below and it can get as high as 30 degrees’ ferinhigh. Half of the year, in the Taiga biome, is below freezing. In the summer it can get as high as 104 degrees and the sunlight can last up to 20 hours. The average precipitation is 40 inches a year. In the summer it rains about 10-20 inches and in the winter it rains about 20-40 inches in the form of snow. It mostly rains in the summer.

The main seasons in the taiga are winter and summer. The spring and autumn are so short you can barely know when it’s there. It is either hot and humid or very cold in the taiga biome. The taiga biome can be located from all around the world from Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and China.
 * Seasons and location of taiga biome-**

=**Animal adaption’s** =
 * Some animals that live in the taiga are: The cow moose, black bear, squirrels, ermine, chipmunks, snowshoe hare, lynx, buffalo, and ptarmigan. These animals need to be perfectly adapted to the taiga's different seasons. Some animals get ready for the winter by storing extra fat layers on their bodies to keep warm. Some animals change their diets for each season. For example, in the summer and spring the cow moose eats water plants and plant shoots, and in the fall and winter they search for twigs, berries, and conifer branches. Other animals, like the ermine change their coat color from brown in the summer and fall to white in the winter and spring to blend with the snow. Their spring and summer coats are also thinner so they can keep cooler during days with higher temperatures. Animals, such as the lynx and snowshoe hare, grow extra fur on the bottom of their feet to walk on snow easier. It also keeps their feet warm and spreads their weight more evenly on the snow so they do not sink . Some animals, such as lemmings, mice, shrews, and voles, live beneath the snow in snow tunnels in the winter. **

Soil Most of the soil in the taiga is rough and damp. Water from precipitation and melting snow in warmer seasons cannot seep through the permafrost, so the taiga ground remains soft and damp in some parts. The main soil in the taiga is Spodosol. Landscape One Place may be a small clear water lake, while another place may be a shallow pond covered in water plants. Since coniferous trees are the dominant plant in the taiga, the soil is mainly composed of needles. These needles are very waxy and fragrant and take a long time to decompose. Due to this, soil forms very slowly in the taiga. The soil that does form has a very high acid content. This is because the acid in conifer needles is released into the soil as they decompose. As a result, the soil is very infertile and very few plants can grow. The taiga has only a few dominate Species of trees depending on where there located, because the uncommon soil makes the taiga landscape unique to the world. Ural mountain range: The Ural Mountains in the taiga extend through western, running in a kind of north south direction from the Arctic Ocean almost to the Aral Sea. The Ural Mountains are also the meeting point for 2 main vegetation zones in the far north - taiga and tundra. []

Credits to: http://chalk.richmond.edu/education/projects/webunits/biomes/tclimate.html, http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/taiga.htm, [], http://library.thinkquest.org/C0113340/text/biomes/biomes.taiga.animals.resident.html