Alien Earthworms Changing Ecology Of Northeast Forests. KINGSTON, R.I. – June 24, 2003 – Some forests throughout the Northeast are rapidly changing, but most observers won't notice it unless they take a close look at the soil beneath their feet. That's because the driving force behind the changing forests are earthworms, which play a key role in recycling nutrients in the soil but which may also be altering habitat for plants, salamanders, birds and other wildlife.
Only a few forest stands are known to be affected to date, according to University of Rhode Island soil scientists Josef Görres and José Amador, but they say the threat to forests is real. Most of the earthworm species found in the Northeast are not native to the area. Görres and Amador are evaluating the environmental impact of the common nightcrawler, one of the region's 16 to 20 species of earthworms.
When earthworms move into a new area, they feed on the organic material on the forest floor and bring it down into their burrows. Funded by the U.S. Eastern deciduous forest. Description Range Biodiversity Threats Conservation Find out more Glossary References The great eastern deciduous forest of North America was once an unbroken swathe of imposing trees that stretched from northern New England to central Florida, and west to the Mississippi River (1) . The eastern deciduous forest forms part of one of the major biomes on earth, the temperate deciduous forests (3) , which can be found in eastern North America, Europe, China and Japan (3) .
The eastern deciduous forest is composed of a remarkable diversity of landscapes and ecosystems that differ to some extent in vegetation, soil and wildlife (4) . Throughout the eastern deciduous forest, mature trees range in height from 18 to 30 metres (6) . Like all temperate forests, the eastern deciduous forest has cold winters, but mild autumns and springs and long, warm summers (1) (3) . More than 110 species of tree occur in the eastern deciduous forest, of which about 75 percent are deciduous (4) . Biomes Coniferous Larvae. Www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nercNORTHAMERICA.html. From around 150,000 to 130,000 years ago, North America experienced colder and generally more arid than present conditions. About 130,000 years ago, a warm phase slightly moister than the present began, and conditions at least as warm as the present lasted until about 115,000 years ago. Subsequent cooling and drying of the climate led to a cold, arid maximum about 70,000 years ago, followed by a slight moderation of climate with a second aridity maximum around 22,000-13,000 14C years ago.
Conditions then quickly became warmer and moister, though with an interruption by cold and aridity in many areas around 11,000 14C years ago. This, roughly speaking, is the vegetation cover that existed 500 years ago as Europeans began to arrive in the Americas. In the eastern USA, forest was predominant with warmth-adapted temperate forest in the south-east. To the west, decreased rainfall and the resulting fires prevented trees from growing, and a wide grassland belt (prairie) existed. J. J. J. American Forests - Classification of Conifer Forests by Forest Region. The temperate conifer forests of the United States contain more than forty important cone-bearing forest tree species. These forests all have members of the taxonomic family called Pinaceae and most are commercially sought. However, some have uses outside the traditional forest product market. This massive softwood forest is spread over the entire North American continent and makes up the major portion of both trees and volume.
There are five principle forest regions in North America that comprise the coniferous forest. The Pacific Coniferous Forest Region: This forest region runs along a thin strip of land for three thousand miles, from Kodiak Island in Alaska to the Santa Cruz Mountains near San Francisco is the Pacific Forest. The Olympic rainforest of Washington supports dense stands of western hemlock , western red cedar, Sitka spruce , and Pacific silver and grand firs.
The Rocky Mountain Coniferous Forest Region: The most visible tree type in the region are conifers.