As a passionate naturalist, wildlife tracker and ecologist, one of the most foundational skills I ever learned was how to observe the difference between coniferous and deciduous forests.
Most people already know how to identify coniferous and deciduous trees by comparing the major differences in leaf structures.
But what many people don’t realize is just because you see a coniferous tree, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re inside a coniferous forest.
For this, we need to look at the actual ratio of deciduous vs coniferous trees growing together as an interconnected system.
A forest is an entire ecology of trees, plants and animals that has much more complexity to observe, but also much more to tell us about our greater surroundings.
Imagine being able to look at a bunch of trees off in the distance, and instantly predict a whole host of things about that forest in just a few seconds!
The really exciting thing is once you know what kind of forest you’re dealing with, suddenly you’re able to start making all kinds of useful predictions about the plants, animals & opportunities to be found there.
Enjoy!
Brian Mertins
