Temperate Coniferous Forest

Temperate coniferous forest is a terrestrial biome, defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature, in which needle-leaved trees dominate the canopy, sometimes alongside broadleaf evergreens or a mixture of both. It develops under two different climate patterns, mild wet winters near the coast or drier conditions inland at higher elevation in the mountains, with warm summers and cool winters in both settings. Pine, cedar, fir and redwood are among its characteristic trees, generally arranged in two layers, an overstory and an understory, with a shrub layer sometimes present as well. Pine-dominated stands typically carry a grass and forb ground cover that supports periodic wildfires, while wetter, rainforest-like stands within the biome instead support a fern-dominated understory shaped by near-constant moisture rather than fire. The biome is unusually productive, sustaining the highest levels of biomass of any terrestrial ecosystem on Earth, and its wettest stands produce some of the largest trees alive, including the coast redwood and the giant sequoia. It occurs across western North America, the southwest of South America, and parts of Australasia including southeastern Australia and northern New Zealand.