Introduces the elementary student to some more of the basic aspects of the geography and climate of the Coniferous forests and to plant and animal adaptions needed to survive there.

1. Where do we find them?

2. Europe AsiaCanada
Alaska
northern Europe,In Alaska, Canada, and northern Asia

3. Because the northern coniferous forests
are located so far north, plants and
animals have adapted to survive.
Extreme cold in long winters
and short summers with very short growing
seasons. Winter days are that are very short,
some with only 2 or 3 hours of sunlight.
Summer days that are long, sometimes
with more than 20 hours of daylight.
are winters so long and summers so
short?
Survive what?
Why

4. Because...as the Earth orbits the sun it is
tilted the same way all the time.
winter in the
northern
coniferous
forests.
summer in the
northern
coniferous
forests.

5. During summer in the northern hemisphere
Earth’s tilt points the north pole toward the
sun where it gets more sunlight. So summer in
the far north may last only 2-3 months but the
days are very long.
Lots of sunlight

6. When Earth is on the opposite side of its
orbit, it is tilted is away from the sun and
the far north has winter for 6-7 months.
Winter days are short--the sun may only rise
for a few hours per day.
Lots of dark..

7. Milder in summer but cool --average
temperature 57 degrees F.
Cold and snowy in winter-- average
temperature 14 degrees F. (that is just 10º
degrees warmer than the freezer in your house)
if you lived there.

8. Not a lot of rain or snow. Average
annual rainfall 14-30 inches---more
than a desert, less than a deciduous
forest and much less than a rainforest.
Even with this small amount of precipitation,
the coniferous forest has swampy regions
called muskegs when the snow and ice melt.

9. Muskegs exist because in
some areas beneath the
forest floor, there is a layer
of permanently frozen soil
called permafrost; in other
places there may be a giant
layer of solid bedrock.
Both the permafrost and
bedrock stop water from
draining through the top
layers of soil creating
these shallow bogs or
muskegs.
Muskegs can look like
solid ground, because
they are covered with
moss, short grasses, and
sometimes even trees.
However, the ground is
wet and spongy.

10. Conifer trees
pine firspruce
The major plants found in the Coniferous forests are:

12. Summer in the
Coniferous Forest

13. Let’s now look at some adaptations that
coniferous trees have allowing them to
survive in the harsh conditions of the far
north.
First, because Conifer trees must
photosynthesize (make food) whenever
they can, the leaves on coniferous trees
stay green all year long.

14. summer winter
Conifer trees don’t drop leaves in the fall. The
growing season is so short that re-growing new leaves
each spring would be wasteful of the tree’s limited
time for food production .

15. If the branches held
snow, heavy wet snow would cause them to
break.
Conifers are triangular shaped so that their branches
will shed snow in the winter.

16. Do you think the beautiful acacia tree
of the African Savanna would be very
well adapted to the coniferous forest?
Why?

17. The conifers have
adapted by growing small
needle shaped leaves with
a waxy coating which help
hold water inside the tree.
Most water in the soil of a
coniferous forest is frozen
during winter and there is
not much precipitation in
summer so coniferous
trees must survive with
very little water.
As the soil is often shallow
(permafrost and/or
bedrock) coniferous tree
roots often spread
horizontally and stay near
the surface.

18. These waxy leaves are
named “needles” because
they are shaped like
needles.
The tree’s name “conifer”
comes from
the word
“cone” the
structure
used for
reproduction.
Female cone
Male cone

19. Seeds for growing
new coniferous
trees are formed in
protective cones
When these seeds
are scattered and
germinate, a new
coniferous tree
seedling grows.

20. Moose Beaver Wolf Black bear
Hawk Owl Lynx
Wolverine
Red Squirrel
Snowshoe Hare

21. Decomposers soil bacteria nematodes
worms, protozoa,
fungi
Conifer trees, shrubs,
grass, ferns, moss
Plant eaters/
primary consumers
A food web in the coniferous forest biome
Small predators,
carnivores, insectivores
wolves LynxLarge predators

22. With long cold winters
and scarce food, few
animals winter in the
northern coniferous
forest. (more than 300 species of birds and
32,000 species of insects).
In summer,
however, a huge
number of insects live
in the marshy muskegs.
And millions of birds
from all over migrate
there to feed on the
insects.

23. only to return again the
following
spring.
Come winter, most of these birds migrate
(move) south in order to find warmer weather,
food and shelter....

24. With winters so long and cold in the northern
coniferous forests almost no cold blooded
reptiles and amphibians live there year round.
However, some warm blooded animals have
adapted to living in these harsh conditions.
During winter, along with the cold,
food is very hard to find for all animals.

25. As fall temperatures cool, birds
and mammals that live all year
long in the far northern forests
grow extra fur or feathers.
This extra layer of fur or feathers
provides insulation that helps
prevent body heat from escaping
during extreme winter conditions.

26. Most year-round inhabitants of the
coniferous forest, including herbivores,
omnivores and carnivores, really stuff
themselves during the late summer and fall,
eating all the food
they can get.
They are storing food
in their bodies as fat,
which of course causes
some serious weight
gain.

27. Notice pictures of this black bear in the late
fall and again in early spring. Bears can lose
up to 40 percent of their weight between fall
and spring.
full hungry

28. We shall see that many animals living
through the winter in the northern
coniferous forests are able to survive by
storing food, either like this in their bodies
or in caches.
During the cold winter when little food was
available the bear lived on the extra layers of
fat she had piled on in the fall. In addition to
providing energy, those layers of fat helped
her keep warm during the cold bitter winter.

29. Like the bear, other
omnivores such as
raccoons and skunks eat
a lot of food in the fall.
They store this extra
food as fat preparing for
a long cold winter when
little food is available.

30. During the winter,
they sleep in dens
living off their stored
fat, coming out only
occasionally to look
for food.

31. Two large herbivores, the moose and the elk
live in the northern coniferous forest.
elk
moose
Since they don’t do extended sleeps during the
winter, they depend on extra hair and fat to
keep them warm during the cold winter.

32. In summer, moose eat large quantities of water
plants from bogs or streams while elk eat
primarily grasses. During winter both must
survive on mostly twigs and bark.
The moose and elk survive on very different
diets depending on the season.

33. Snowshoe hares are also
herbivorous. They feed on
grass, flowers, and other
greenery in summer. In
winter, they survive on
buds, soft bark, and twigs.

34. For getting around in deep snow, both moose
and snowshoe hares have very wide feet to
keep them from sinking in the snow. Compare
the examples. Another adaptation.
Moose hoof
Jack Rabbit
Snowshoe Rabbit

35. The abundant red squirrel’s
summer diet includes seeds,
fruit, nuts, bark, buds, fungi
and insects. Occasionally
they eat birds eggs, young
birds and young mice but
seeds inside a cone are by far
their favorite food both
summer and winter.
Red squirrels build nests in
the conifer trees where
they raise their babies.

36. Seed eating birds that live in the coniferous forest
have beaks that are adapted to reaching in between
the scales of cones to reach the seeds.
The Red Crossbill has a
bill in which the upper
and lower tips cross
over each other. The
bird bites between the
scales of a cone and
pries them apart by
opening its bill. Then it
dislodges the seed with
its tongue.

37. Taiga Voles are cute little
herbivores that live near
streams and muskegs. They
eat mostly moss and grass.
Taiga voles dig underground
burrows where they build
nests of dry grasses.
During August and
September, they store food
in these burrows. During
the winter five to ten voles
huddle together for warmth
in a nest and share the
stored food.

38. And, at the top of the food chain:
and the hawk owl.
In the of northern coniferous forest we find
the grey wolf,the lynx,

39. Some predatory birds such
as the North Hawk Owl live
year round in the northern
coniferous forest and grow
extra feathers in winter. A
North Hawk Owls hunts
mainly voles, red squirrels
and snowshoe hares.

40. Lynx are covered with beautiful thick fur that keeps
them warm during frigid winters. Their large furry
paws hit the ground with a spreading toe motion that
makes them function as natural snowshoes.
Lynx eat mice, squirrels, and birds, but prefer
the snowshoe hare.

41. Grey wolves, who must continue to hunt
through the winter, do grow an insulating
layer of hair to keep warm.
They hunt in packs. Whenever they can bring
down an elk or moose, the pack eats well for a
little while.

42. That’s it for the
Northern Coniferous Forests