China & Japan

Temperate Deciduous Forests of China & Japan

Geographical condition 

Location

 The northeast Asian deciduous forest biome is located on the continent of Asia at about 30° to 45° North latitude, and about 130° to 145° East longitude. The biome covers parts of Korea, China, Russia, and Japan. In one part of China, it known as the Northeast China Plain deciduous forest, and in another part of China near the plain, it known as the Manchurian mixed forest.

 

Climate 

The forest experiences all four seasons, and has long cold winters, and warm, humid summers. The temperature changes within the seasons. Annually about 20-40 inches of rain falls, mostly in the summer and fall. The Manchurian mixed forest covers about 194,600 square miles, which is about twice the size of Wyoming, and the Northeast China Plain deciduous forest covers 89,800 square miles, about twice the size of Pennsylvania. The biome is highly elevated in some places and the home to more than one mountain range.

Flora &Fauna

 Walking through this biome, the trees one would see would be similar to trees in the United States. Pine trees, spruce, oak, and ash trees grow in this biome as well as Manchurian elm, Manchurian walnut, Mongolian oak, and Durian birch. Below these trees, a valuable medicinal plant called the Asian ginseng grows, as well as the shrubs bush clover, hazel, Durian buckthorn, hawthorn, and the thorny Durian rose. The Mongolian oak and the Durian birch tend to grow in drier spaces. Many areas like where the Mongolian oak, and Durian birch stand are very dry, but other areas are prone to seasonal flooding. Forests there probably include woodland, grassland, and swamp components with closed canopy forest staying in the well-drained but wetter sights. The bamboo plant, which grows in the area, has adapted to growing in the cleared areas of the forest, rather than the shady ground floor.

 

Animals found here are the endangered red-crowned crane and red panda are two of these animals. Others that now have first class protection are the sable, Sika deer, leopard, and Siberian tiger. Otters hang out in freshwater streams in this forest biome, while Asiatic black bears look for insects. Leopards and Siberian tigers hunt in search of their prey, which include musk deer, red deer, Sika deer, and goat-like animals called gorals. Lynx and sable prowl for smaller prey, which include rodents and small birds. Pandas in the area adapt to the area by growing thick winter coats.

 

 

 

  

Forests uses and solutions 

In recent decades, heavy logging has extensively changed much of the forest. Timber harvesting, over-harvesting, and fires have dramatically reduced the amount of Asian ginseng, which is rare, or extinct in most of eastern Asia. The Northeast China Plain is intensively farmed for wheat mainly, so very little traces of the original forest remain. Patches of forest can still be seen in some places where it has been protected for religious reasons, or where the land is steep and inaccessible. At the mouth of the Liao River where wetlands, reed beds, sand, and mudflat areas still exist, there is a breeding shelter to protect endangered red-crowned cranes and Saunders gulls lies, called the ShuangtaiItekou Nature Reserve.

Conservation

However, the Northeast Asian deciduous forest conservation status is critical and endangered, hopefully in this millennium more reserves will be established, and maybe the countries' government will do something about the extensive farming in the Northeast China Plain. Hopefully the deciduous forest will never fully disappear.

Impact

There are number of factors that collectively influence temperate deciduous forests of the world. These include land use history, current land management, climate change, fire suppression, changes in atmospheric chemistry, and invasions of exotic species. These human impacts on temperate forests have been both direct and indirect. 

• Direct impacts

Direct impacts include site conversion to other land covers and land uses, including inadvertent effects on the native species composition.

• Indirect impacts

It includes the introduction or elimination of herbivorous or competing species.  Fire suppression and attendant changes in disturbance regimes, atmospheric pollution, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2), ozone, sulfur, and nitrogen compounds. Changes in the age structure of forest through cutting patterns and practices, and changes in stand age demographics on longer time scales related to historical changes in local, national, and global economies.