BOREAL FOREST

Boreal Forest

Boreal Forests

Introduction

In Canada, forest has occupied 45 percent of the territories, represents 417.6 million hectares of Canada's continental areas of 921.5 million hectare. The Canada's Boreal Forests store approximated 186billiontons of carbon(C) in forests and peats ecosystem. These are equal to 27 years value of the world carbon emission in 2003 due to the burning of fossil fuel. Change to nature's system of Canadian Boreal Forests may change its capability to store the carbon. Fire is the natural and serious portion of healthy Boreal ecosystems, but the global warming appeared to cause damaging fire with unnatural frequencies, growing greenhouse gases emission. In Addition, frequencies, time-duration, and extents of insect's outbreak expected to increase with the global warming, acceleration of decomposition and the released carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Maintained intact, healthy area in the Boreal improved the ecosystem flexibility and resistances to these growing disturbances. Industry activities have also increased carbon emission by eliminating the defensive forest covers, altering hydrology that speeds up decompositions of soil and peats, and actually damaging soil. While carbon emission by natural process varies from year to year, that should limit emission consequence from human activities.

Discussion

Boreal forests occupy areas of the most recent ice-age glacial cover and commonly overlay permafrost-affected soils. The distribution of permafrost is not uniform and ranges from completely permafrost-free soils and scattered permafrost in interior Alaska and Canada to widespread solid permafrost of Central and Eastern Siberia. Poor soil drainage in combination with vigorous growth of vegetation, low temperatures, and short frost-free period facilitates accumulation of partially decomposed organic material and formation of peatlands. Although peatlands develop in many biomes, nearly 80% of all peatlands worldwide are found within the boreal zone. Boreal peatlands and trees are estimated to account for nearly 40% of global terrestrial carbon pool and "therefore" play a crucial role in the global carbon budget. In addition to their prominent role in carbon storage, peatlands also receive and store atmospherically deposited pollutants, including nitrogen, sulfur, and heavy metals (Desponts, Payette, 1992). Despite great accumulation of the organic layer, nutrient availability in soils within the boreal biome is generally low.

Although the biological diversity of dominant tree species in the boreal biome is low, boreal forests now represent the largest intact ecosystem on Earth and "therefore" represent a highly valuable biodiversity conservation resource (Kasischke, 2000). The spatial extent of these forests sustains very large populations of large herbivores, including (Kasischke, 2000), as well as smaller herbivorous boreal species such as snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) and beaver (Castor Canadensis). In turn, the availability of large numbers of prey species sustains considerable populations of fur-bearing predators, including fairly common species such as brown bear (Ursus arctos), grey wolf (Canis lupus), as well as the endemic and critically endangered Amur (Siberian) tiger (Panthera tigris), and various members of the weasel family such as wolverine (Gulo gulo), marten and sable (Martes), and mink (Neovison. Mustela). Boreal forests contain hundreds of threatened plant and animal species, included in the World Conservation Congress red ...