Our Temperate Rain Forest Travels

• For summer vacation, we decided to go to southern Chile and New Zealand. New Zealand and southern Chile are similar to the area we live in as they are all temperate rainforests. Temperate rainforests stretch from about 38°- 56° south latitude and 38°- 61° north latitude. They, also, are along coastlines.

Animal Life

• The majority of animals in the temperate rainforest biome live on or near the forest floor. This protects them from the wind and rain. Smaller mammals and birds eat seeds that fall on the forest floor. Insects typically live in the tree bark and decomposing plant matter. There are, also, many larger animals.

Deer Mountain Lion

Little Penguin Burrowing Owl

Vegetation

• There are four main layers of vegetation in the temperate rainforests: – Emergent (huge trees) – Canopy (tall trees creating a cover) – Understory (bushes, ferns that receive little

sunlight) – Forest floor (few plants, decaying mulch that

animals eat or use for various things)

• Also, you can find epiphytes and lianas in the temperate rainforests. – Epiphytes are plants that live on the surface of

other plants, especially on the trunks and branches of tree, mainly mosses and ferns

– Lianas are vines that being to live on the ground as small, self-supporting shrubs and rely on other plants to reach the light environment of the upper canopy

• Southern Chile and New Zealand share similar trees unlike the Pacific Northwest. Both southern Chile and New Zealand contain forests with southern beeches within them. Chilean forests, also, contain a mix of Monkey Puzzle trees and Patagonian Cypress trees. New Zealand, also, have Kauri Pine trees.

Kauri Pine

Monkey Puzzle Tree

Patagonian Cypress

Physical Location

• Like in the Pacific Northwest, temperate rainforests are narrow strips along the coasts.

• They are backed by mountains and are on the windward side of the mountain. – This would be the western side of the mountain

for North America. • Ocean winds bring large amounts of moisture

onto the temperate rainforests due to their place in relation to the mountains.

Climate

• two distinct seasons: long, wet winter; short, dry summer

• at least 2-3 metres of rain each year, if not 5, temperatures rarely go below 0 or above 30 (Celsius)

• lots of mist

No Place Like Home

We live in a temperate rainforest which stretches from Oregon to Alaska. Though it is considered a temperate rainforest, it’s considerably different from other temperate rainforests. The Pacific Northwest contains coniferous trees rather than the broad-leaved trees in Chile and New Zealand.

Where to next?

• Compared to other biomes, the temperate rainforest is a considerably small biome in area covered. The most noteworthy temperate rainforests are in the Pacific Northwest, southern Chile and New Zealand. There are, also, temperate rainforests in the UK, Norway, Japan and southern Australia.

Citations: Our SourcesAllaby, Michael, and Richard Garratt. Temperate Rainforests. 1st ed. New

York City: Chelsea House, 2006. Print. Biomes of the Earth.

“World Biomes: Rainforest.” http://kids.nceas.ucsb.edu. N.p. N.d. http://kids.nceas.ucsb.edu/biomes/rainforest.html. Wednesday, February 6, 2013.

“Temperate Rainforest Biomes.” expedia.ca. N.p. N.d. http://relly19.tripod.com/. Wednesday, February 6, 2013.

“Temperate Rainforest Biome.” wikispaces.com. N.p. N.d. http://biomee.wikispaces.com/Temperate+Rainforest+Biome. Wednesday, February 6, 2013.