Taiga is a strip of severe coniferous forest consisting of high stemmed spruce, pine, larch, cedar and fir with an admixture of birch, aspen, alder, and in the east of Siberia — fragrant poplar.
The taiga makes up almost 90% of the area of the entire forest zone, which occupies more than 1/3 of the territory of Russia.
The southern border of the taiga coincides with the limit of the distribution of oak, which is not found in the taiga.
In the European part of Russia, the taiga stretches from Karelia to the Urals, then stretches through all of Siberia, including Kamchatka and Sakhalin.
In the south west and south east, the taiga passes into a strip of mixed and broad leaved forests.
The climate of the taiga is characterized by relatively warm and rather humid summers and cool, and sometimes cold winters.
The average annual precipitation is from 300 to 600 mm (in Eastern Siberia it decreases even to 150-200 mm).
The air temperature in summer often exceeds +30 °C; in winter, frosts reach 30 ... 50°C.
As we move from west to east, the climate of the taiga becomes more continental.
In Eastern Siberia, there is a hot and dry summer, a harsh and snow free winter.
In Yakutia, a fairly powerful layer of permafrost is preserved.
According to the relief, the taiga is not uniform throughout.
Within the European part of Russia and Western Siberia (up to the Yenisei) it is low lying and swampy.
The forest is dominated by spruce and pine, sometimes cedar.
Between the Yenisei and Lena, the taiga becomes mountainous, and to the east of the Lena it turns into a real mountain country.
The forests here consist of Siberian and Daurian larch trees adapted to the harsh climate and cold soils.
Dense taiga forests often have neither shrubs nor grass cover under their canopy.
There is a chaos of windbreak and dead wood in them: trees withered on the root, decks of fallen trunks with rotten wood, rotten stumps, moss carpets.
The closed crowns of high stemmed trees create semi darkness.
The larch forests of Eastern Siberia (beyond the Yenisei) look somewhat lighter, but they are also full of windbreak and mosses.
Only in the burning areas there are areas with good undergrowth and grass cover.
There is an intensive process of reforestation, there are young birch trees and berry bushes (raspberries, currants), flowering herbs.
Along the banks of large and small rivers that cut through the taiga, alder, willow, mountain ash, birch, dense thickets of various shrubs grow.
This brings diversity to the same type of vegetation of the coniferous forest.
The taiga feeds many animals, among which some feed on the seeds of coniferous trees, buds and shoots of shrubs, various insects, berries and mushrooms, while others lead a predatory lifestyle, attacking live prey.
Mouse like rodents play an important role in the nutrition of carnivorous animals.
Animals in the taiga have to experience the influence of snow cover, which lasts for quite a long time (200-250 or more days a year).
It lies on the ground in an even loose layer, in places of considerable depth.
For some animals, snow makes it difficult to move and get food, for others it serves as a protection from the cold.
For example, mouse like rodents and shrews escape from frost under the cover of snow and continue to lead an active life, finding food for themselves throughout the winter in the forest litter and the upper soil layer.
Hares use snow for shelter, arranging their beds in it; grouse and grouse are buried in the snow for the night; bears sleep in their dens and chipmunks in their burrows under the snow cover.
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