Amelia, Grace, Richard, Laurent

The Land * It stretches over Eurasia and North America. The taiga is located near the top of the world, just below the tundra biome. * Taiga is the biggest biome constituting almost thirty percent of the Earth’s entire forests * In Asia taiga covers a considerable portion of Russia, notably Siberia, but also northern Kazakhstan, the north part of Mongolia. within Japan.Japan * For Europe, taiga covers a band across most of Sweden, much of Finland and northern Norway.Sweden * Within North America, taiga constitutes the majority of interior Canada, along with the extreme northern elements of the USA including much of Alaska.

PEOPLE AND THE TAIGA: * The major industries of the taiga include logging, mining, and hydroelectric development. These activities have had negative impacts on areas of this biome and may continue to negatively affect it in the future. * A majority of the logging in the taiga is done by clear-cutting, using heavy machinery to remove much of the surrounding forest. * Hydroelectric development may seem beneficial because it uses water to generate power, but it has damaged the taiga by changing stream habitats and flow patterns, and flooding large areas and changing the landscape. * Mining is a concern because it may result in pollution of The Taiga is being destroyed everyday by humans. * Large-scale industrial forestry, or logging, is the greatest important threat affecting the boreal forest. The wood is used in the "pulp factory" for pulp and paper. * Other threats to the Taiga are oil and gas exploration, road building, mining, human triggered forest fire, and climate change. Animals of the Taiga are being hunted and trapped for their fur

* PLANTS: Compared to other biomes, the taiga has less diversity in plant life. The most common type of tree found in the taiga is the conifer, or cone-bearing tree. Conifers, also known as evergreens, include pines, spruces and firs. There may also occasionally be deciduous species present, such as oak, birch, willow, or alder, in a particularly wet or disturbed area. The soil in the taiga is thin, acidic and not very nutrient rich. It also is rocky. Due to these factors, plants in the taiga have different adaptations than the plants we find around Santa Barbara. * The< name, evergreen, describes an important adaptation of conifers. Just like Kermit, they are always green! Because they don't drop their leaves in the winter, they don't have to regrow them in the spring. This is good for trees in a tough environment because growing new leaves takes a lot of energy. Another adaptation of conifers to live in the with taiga has to do with their needles. Although the taiga has moderately high precipitation, the frozen winter ground makes it difficult for trees to get water. Having thin needles a waxy coating limits water loss of the conifer through transpiration. The dark color of the pine needles is also important. What happens when you where a dark T-shirt on a sunny day? You get hot, right? This is because your dark shirt is absorbing energy from the sun. Well, the dark needles do the same thing for the evergreen. They help the tree absorb the maximum amount of energy from the sun for photosynthesis. Conifers also have that pointy shape for a good reason. The winter snow slides right off of their branches. Without this shape the heavy snow might break or damage the conifer branches.

* A tall, coniferous, evergreen tree with a straight trunk, down-swept branches and open, pyramidal crown with a nodding tip; growing to a height of m and a diameter of 1 m. * Needles: nearly flat, soft, glossy, widely spaced along twigs, of two lengths with the shorter ones standing upright along the top of the twigs producing a feathery, flat look yellowish-green on top and whitish on the underside. Bark: dark brown to reddish-brown, becoming thick and strongly grooved with age. Cones: numerous, small cm long, greenish, turning brown with age hang from the ends of the branchlets.

* The balsam fir is one of the more important conifers of the Boreal Forest. It may also be referred to as balsam, Canadian balsam, eastern fir, and braced balsam firsmall to medium-sized evergreen conifer, averaging 15 to 23 m (50 to 75 ft) in height; topped with a dense crown. Branches whorled; branchlets principally opposite in flat sprays with smooth, waxy bark. Bark on trunk of young trees is smooth with resin blisters but becoming scaly with aging.

* Sometimes called evergreens, most coniferous trees keep their foliage year-round. There are over 600 living species of conifers, and while there is some debate over how many are native to Canada, the number is approximately 30. Conifers include the oldest and tallest trees. The oldest, the Bristlecone pine, can live to be nearly 5,000 years old. The tallest, the Coast redwood, grows to over 100 m high. Both of these conifers grow in California. Products made from coniferous trees include paper, many kinds of lumber, furniture and anti-cancer drugs. In large part because of their usefulness, conifers are in danger. Exploitation, forest degradation and habitat destruction have placed 34 per cent of conifers under threat of extinction.