Siberian Taiga

About the Siberian Taiga

The Siberian taiga is the largest forest on Earth, a belt of spruce, pine, fir and larch running most of the way across northern Asia. It is a simple forest by tropical standards — few tree species, long winters, a short growing season — and its animals are correspondingly wide-ranging, since resources are thinly spread. Larch dominates the coldest parts because it drops its needles and shuts down entirely rather than trying to survive the winter with them. The taiga holds the world's largest populations of brown bear, wolf, lynx and sable, and in its far southeast, where it meets Manchurian mixed forest, it is the last habitat of the Amur tiger and Amur leopard. Permafrost underlies much of it, and its thaw is changing drainage, forest composition and fire behaviour.