Warm-Temperate Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America

Abstract

Eastern North America has a large region of humid temperate climate, extending from southeastern Canada to south-central Florida and west to Missouri, eastern Oklahoma and eastern Texas. Within this area is a large region of temperate deciduous forest, perhaps the world’s largest, with a large area of “southern” forests that may correspond to Kira’s concept of warm-temperate deciduous forest. These forests are dominated mainly by Quercus species, but Fagus, Liquidambar, Nyssa, and other deciduous trees can also dominate or co-dominate, depending largely on topography. Some important tree species span the full north-south range of the deciduous forests, but some genera have clear “northern” and “southern” species. Oak-hickory forests cover the largest parts of this southern region, but other types include beech and other mesophytic forests, so-called “southern mixed hardwoods”, and rich bottomland forests. Some of these southern deciduous forests occur on the coastal plain, which has climates clearly warm enough for broad-leaved evergreen trees. The coastal plain, however, is geologically young and has complex vegetation mosaics determined more by topography and substrate than by climate. As a result, some coastal-plain deciduous forests are permanent and probably not successional to zonal warm-temperate evergreen broad-leaved forests.