Temperate Deciduous Forest

Temperate Deciduous Forest

• Changing seasons
• 'Deciduous' means exactly what the trees on these leaves do: change colour in autumn, fall off in winter, grow back in spring/ lose their leaves every year and grow them back again
  (Helps trees to survive winter)
• Winter: form of recipitation- sleet, snow, hail
• Average rainfall is 30-60inches per year
• Average temperature is about 50F

Surviving the changing season

• Special adaptations
  - Summer: broad leaves to capture energy from sun and convert to food
  - Autumn: Green chlorophyll in leaves begin to decompose, revealing brillant shades of reds, oranges, yellows
  - Winter: trees and plants become dormant
  - Spring: grows new leaves and begin photosynthesis again

Location

• primarily in the eastern half of the United States, Canada, Europe, parts of Russia, China, and Japan

What causes season

• the tilt of the Earth's axis at different times of the years
  (sun rays hit different parts of the globe more directly)

Temperate Deciduous Forest animals

• must adjust to cold winters and hot summers by hibernating, migrating, keeping active all winter
• Includes Black bear, grey squirrel, raccoon, white-tailed deer, cardinal, yellow-bellied sapsucker

Colours of leaves in the fall



Black walnut and butternut	Drop leaves before they turn
Locust	Stays green until leaves drop
Ash	Plum purple
Red maple, dogwood, sassafras, and scarlet oak	Dark red
Sugar maple and sumac	Flame red and orange
Oak, beech, larch, elm, hickory, and sycamore	Tan or brown
Poplar, birch, tulip tree, willow	Yellow