T2.3 Oceanic cool temperate rainforests

T2. Temperate-boreal forests and woodlands biome

T2

Profile summary

Full profile at https://global-ecosystems.org/explore/groups/T2.3

Brief description

Oceanic cool temperate rainforests have evergreen or semi-deciduous, small-leaved trees, with conifers in some regions. These forests occupy a cooler, wetter climate than warm temperate forests (T2.4), but ocean influence promotes very high precipitation and limits persistence of winter snow (compared with T2.1 or T2.2). Tree diversity is low, but abundant epiphytic and terrestrial mosses and liverworts, ferns, lichens, and conspicuous fungi contribute to seasonal productivity. Foodwebs are simple, with low vertebrate diversity and fewer large herbivores and predators than T2.1 and T2.2, but with many species found nowhere else.

Key features

Closed canopy evergreen or semi-deciduous forests in cool wet climates, high endemism with low tree diversity and abundant epiphytes.

Overview of distribution

Cool temperate coasts of Chile, Patagonia, New Zealand, Tasmania and Pacific Northwest.

Map description

Terrestrial ecoregions containing major or minor occurrences of this ecosystem functional group were identified by consulting available ecoregion descriptions (Dinerstein et al. 2017), global and regional reviews, national and regional ecosystem maps, locations of relevant examples, and proofed by expert reviewers. Consequently they are coarse-scale indicative representations of distribution, except where they occupy small ecoregions. Ecoregions were mapped at 30 arc second spatial resolution..

Map code and version: T2.3.web.orig v1.0. DOI

Version history

Profile versions

  • v2.1 (2022-04-06): DA Keith; SK Wiser; N Brummit; F Essl; MS McGlone; D Faber-Langendoen.1
  • v2.01 (NA): NA.
  • v2.0 (2020-05-31): DA Keith; SK Wiser; N Brummit; F Essl; MS McGlone; D Faber-Langendoen.
  • v1.0 (2020-01-20): DA Keith; SK Wiser; NA Brummitt; F Essl; D Faber-Langendoen.

Available maps

Read more details about the current map versions here.

  • Indicative Map (code: T2.3.IM.orig, version v1.0)
  • Web navigation (code: T2.3.web.orig, version v1.0)

Read more details about older or alternative versions of maps for this functional group.

  • Indicative Map: requires review (code: T2.3.IM.orig, version v2.0)
  • Indicative Map: discarded (code: T2.3.IM.mix, version v1.0)

References

Main references

References used in the different versions of the profiles.

  • DallaSala DA, Alaback P, Spribille T, von Wehrden H, Nauman RS (2011) Just what are temperate and boreal rainforests? Temperate and boreal rainforests of the world: ecology and conservation (Ed. DA DellaSala), pp1-41. Island Press, Washington DC
  • McGlone MS, Buitenwerf R, Richardson SJ (2016) The formation of the oceanic temperate forests of New Zealand New Zealand Journal of Botany 54:128-155
  • McGlone MS, Lusk CH, Armesto JJ (2016) Biogeography and ecology of south-temperate forests New Zealand Journal of Botany 54: 94-99

Map references

References used in the different versions of the maps (current and discarded).

  • Dinerstein E, Olson D, Joshi A, Vynne C, Burgess ND, Wikramanayake E, Hahn N, Palminteri S, Hedao P, Noss R, Hansen M, Locke H, Ellis EE, Jones B, Barber CV, Hayes R, Kormos C, Martin V, Crist E, Sechrest W, Price L, Baillie JEM, Weeden D, Suckling K, Davis C, Sizer N, Moore R, Thau D, Birch T, Potapov P, Turubanova S, Tyukavina A, de Souza N, Pintea L, Brito JC, Llewellyn Barnekow Lillesø JP, van Breugel P, Graudal L, Voge M, Al-Shammari KF, Saleem M (2017) An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm, BioScience 67: 534–545. DOI:10.1093/biosci/bix014. Data-set available on-line
  • Tuanmu, M.-N. and W. Jetz (2014) A global 1-km consensus land-cover product for biodiversity and ecosystem modeling Global Ecology and Biogeography 23(9):1031–1045 DOI:10.1111/geb.12182

Footnotes

  1. This is the current version available at official site.↩︎