Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
The power of the Atlantic explodes in a geyser of spray.
Coastal Forests and Tundra
As coast dwellers we often face out to sea, contemplating its mysteries, but we are generally more familiar and
more at home with the terrestrial environment at our backs. On land, as in the sea, this Atlantic realm is where
north meets south. Three of the global terrestrial communities, or biomes, meet here along a latitudinal gradi-
ent—from south to north, the temperate broadleaf and mixed forest, the boreal coniferous forest, and the tun-
dra. Eugene P. Odum coined the term biome in his classic text, Fundamentals of Ecology, saying that it was
“the largest land unit which it is convenient to recognize.” A biome is characterized by distinct climax vegeta-
tion, which is the final or stable community in a successional series and is self-perpetuating. Climate and the
availability of water are major factors determining the characteristics of the biological communities, or ecosys-
tems, typically found there. The community is not defined by vegetation alone, but also by the animals that
live there.
The great boreal forests that sweep across the northern regions of Canada hold sway in Newfoundland and
Labrador, and at the higher altitudes of the Christmas Mountains in New Brunswick, the Gaspé Peninsula in
Quebec, and the Cape Breton Highlands in Nova Scotia. But this seemingly limitless coniferous forest gives
way to the temperate broadleaf and mixed forest in the Maritime Provinces and northern New England. In
northern Labrador, trees of any kind succumb to the subarctic climate and are replaced by sedges, heath
shrubs, and grasses.
Regional and local variations in vegetation are found within each of these three major terrestrial biomes.
The temperate broadleaf and mixed forest biome, for example, includes a number of distinct ecoregions with
characteristic species. In the south, the Middle Atlantic Coastal Forest occupies the flat Atlantic Coastal Plain,
