Taiga Biome

By: Moutaz Shabab

Where is the Taiga Located

The taiga is the biggest biome in the world, located on the northern hemisphere of the world, stretching across the world from Alaska to Russia.

Plants of the Taiga

Douglas-Fir

The Douglas-Fir is a tall tree it can grow from 12-18 meters high and like most of the taiga plants it has needles. It is a very important tree because it is used for lumber

the leaves are used for tea and is a last resort food source for animals. The way it adapts to the climate is that it has needles that help store water and that it has a very rough bark.

Jack Pine

The jack pine is also a tall tree it can grow to be 27 meters tall. Has a reddish-brown color for it’s bark and yellowish-green color for the needles. It adapts to the biome

because it’s branches always face the sun and move to the direction of the sun.

Siberian Spruce

The Siberian spruce is a very tall tree that can grow up to be 30 meters tall. It has drooping branches that make it look like a

pyramid and it is very glossy. The way it adapts to the environment is that needles that help store water and it has this sticky substance around the tree that keeps the tree warm to survive the winter.

Animals of the Taiga

The Bobcat

The bobcat looks like a normal domestic cat except it is larger than the normal cat. It gets it’s name from it’s short bobby tail. The bobcat has two colors for the winter and summer. It is a carnivore.

It’s main diet is mice, squirrel and birds. The way it adapts to the environment is that the two colors, that change into reddish brown in the summer and tawny grey in the winter.

The Gray Wolf

The Gray Wolf is the largest wild canine. It has different coat colors like gray, brown, white, and black. They have long legs and wide paws. Gray Wolves are carnivores. Their main diet is moose and caribou, when in need they eat rodents and scavenge. The gray wolf has many adaptations. They have long fur, 20 times

better hearing than humans and 100 times keener smell than humans and have a great amount of stamina.

The Snowshoe Rabbit

The Snowshoe Rabbit is the one of the largest rabbits in the world. It’s coat is white in the winter and gray in the summer. The Snowshoe Rabbit is a herbivore. Their main diet is grass and clover in the summer, and bark, twigs, and buds in the winter. The way

it adapts to the biome is that the back feet of the rabbit can widen so that their feet can be like snowshoes. It also has fur under it’s feet so that it can improve the traction control of the foot.

Abiotic Factors

• Temperature: the average temperature of the taiga is 0°C. The climate of the taiga has short mild summers and cold freezing winters.

• Rainfall: the average rainfall is about 40 inches per year.

• Landscape: the landscape of the taiga is that it is snowy most of the year. It is full of trees and is very green during summer. It has lots of mountains.

Taiga Resources

One of the most major resources are lumber because of it’s excess of trees. It also has medicinal products. There is some natural minerals underneath the taiga. They also take fur from the animals and most of the animals of the taiga are endangered. This

is a bad thing due to the deforestation of the forests, and the the extinction of animals.

How has Science Helped us to know these Resources

• Trees: We know that trees are a good source of firewood because of fire ignited on wood makes the wood burn.

• Medicinal Plants: We know that some plants are medicinal because of microscopes used to find healing cells.

Human Activities

One of the main human activities on the taiga is the deforestation of the forest to collect the wood of trees or to mine underneath the forest. Another one of the human activities is hunting animals for their fur. That is endangering animals.

The Use of Resources Affecting the:

• Environment: It affects the environment negatively by the deforestation and endangerment of the environment.

• Economics: It affects economics positively because lots of people in the cold regions need firewood of their houses and wood for shelter, so people get lots of money.

• Society: It affects the society positively and negatively. Positively because it gives houses to the people. Negatively because the deforestation of the forest leads to some animals who don’t have homes in their biome so they will go to humans and steal some of their cattle or food and it will hurt people.

Bibliography

"Google Images." Google. Web. 28 Jan. 2012. <http://www.google.com.qa/imghp?hl=en>."Taiga Biomes." Blue Planet Biomes. Web. 28 Jan. 2012. <http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/taiga.htm>."Taiga Deforestation." Page Has Moved. Web. 28 Jan. 2012. <http://www1.american.edu/ted/TAIGA.HTM>."Taiga." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 28 Jan. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiga>.