Nakamura Y., Krestov P.V.
Coniferous forests (Ecosystems of the World, Vol. 6) Year: 2005 Pages: 163-220The vegetation cover of Eastern Asia varies greatly in response to two basic climatic gradients characteristic for the territory. The area stretches from latitude 39?N to 73?N. In accordance with this wide latitudinal range, the climate ranges from temperate in the south to arctic in the north. The differentiation in climate causes a change in vegetation expressed from north to south as a sequence of phytogeographical zones of (1) polar deserts, (2) tundra, (3) dwarf-pine woodlands, (4) boreal forests, and (5) temperate hardwood– conifer and summer-green (deciduous) broadleaved forests. From the coast of the Pacific Ocean there is a continentality gradient towards the interior. The climate on the Komandorskiye and Kurilskiye islands is suboceanic with cold summers and mild winters. In the inner continental regions it changes to ultracontinental with very cold winters and warm summers. The territory of Far-East Asia is usually subdivided into five continentality sectors: (1) suboceanic, (2) maritime, (3) sub-maritime, (4) continental, and (5) ultracontinental. The vegetation in each sector reflects a change in climate from a damp oceanic climate with relatively little seasonal variation to a dry climate with strong seasonal contrast in the inner regions. This change of climate in the temperate zone of Asia is associated with corresponding changes in the vegetation, which varies from mesic broadleaved–coniferous forests on the Pacific islands to excessively dry steppe and deserts in the interior areas on the eastern edge of the continent. In this chapter we focus on forest vegetation of the temperate zone, characterized by the presence of mixed broadleaved–coniferous and broadleaved deciduous forests in the lower montane belt on zonal sites with the following values of bioclimatic variables: Kira’s warmth index exceeding 45; mean annual temperature exceeding 0?C; summer precipitation exceeding winter precipitation; precipitation always exceeding evaporation. This zone includes vegetation in eastern Japan, the southern Kurilskiye Ostrova, the southernmost area of Sakhalin (Mys Kril’on), North Korea, northeastern China and the southern part of the Russian Far East.
