Deciduous Forest

Deciduous forests are dominated by tree species that drop their leaves and become seasonally dormant in response to challenging environmental conditions. Broad-leaved tree species of temperate deciduous forests drop their leaves in autumn to avoid the tissue-damaging winter temperatures and water stress of frozen soils. In the dry tropics, deciduous tree species shed their leaves to avoid the drought stress and injurious high temperatures associated with the dry season.

Temperate broad-leaved deciduous forest largely occurs in the northern hemisphere, chiefly eastern North America, western and central Europe, and eastern Asia. A small region of the southern Andes supports the southern hemisphere's only occurrence of temperate deciduous forest. Evergreen coniferous tree species, like pine (Pinus), spruce (Picea), fir (Abies), and hemlock (Tsuga) also grow in most temperate ...