What Are the Similarities Between the Tundra and the Taiga Biomes?
Both the tundra and the taiga biomes have short summers and long winters with low precipitation and permafrost. The same animals and plant species are found in both, such as wolves, brown bears, bees, sedges, grasses and willows.
Taiga is a belt of boreal forests in the northern hemisphere, spreading across Canada and Russia. Tundra lies to the north of taiga and to the south of the Arctic Circle. Tundra and taiga biomes are similar, mostly in that they lie close to the North Pole. However, average temperatures, biological diversity and soil fertility all drop as one moves from taiga to tundra.
Both taiga and tundra have short, cool summers and a limited growing season. Both exhibit drastic season changes and are transformed in springtime, when the snow melts and new grasses and flowering plants sprout. In tundra the short growing season is somewhat compensated by long light days during summers, when flowering plants can develop rapidly.
Both biomes have layers of permanently frozen soil, permafrost. This is closer to the surface in tundra. These harsh conditions mean that very few tree species grow in tundra. However, even to the south, in the taiga, the forests are part of bog ecosystems. In the tundra, the landscape primarily consists of bogs and lakes with a small population of dwarf trees.
