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Walking through the Manchurian Mixed Forests ecoregion, you'd see many kinds of trees that are similar to those that grow in the United States. Pine, spruce, oak, and ash trees all grow across these low-lying hills. But if you had a chance to see the wildlife that lives in these forests, you'd know you were in a different part of the world. Sables, leopards, and Siberian tigers are some of the many rare and amazing mammals that still roam these forests.
Manchurian Mixed Forests grow across lower elevation hills from the northern part of the Korean Peninsula into northeastern China. Winters here are long, cold, and quite dry. But an average of 20-40 inches (500-1,000 mm) of rain falls annually, mostly during the summer and fall. This climate supports mixed evergreen and deciduous forests made up of Korean pines, Manchurian elm, Manchurian walnut, and regional species of spruce, fir, oak, ash, and birch. Growing underneath these trees is a variety of shrubs and groundcover, including a valuable medicinal plant called Asian ginseng.
Otters frolic in freshwater streams in this forested ecoregion. Asiatic black bears forage for insects and beehives. Leopards and Siberian tigers prowl in search of prey, including musk deer, red deer, Sika deer, and goat-like animals called gorals. Lynx and sables (a kind of marten) hunt smaller prey, including rodents and birds.
In recent decades, heavy logging has dramatically changed the composition of much of these forests. Timber harvesting, fires, and over collection have also greatly reduced the amount of Asian ginseng, which is rare or extinct across much of this area. For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report. All text by World Wildlife Fund © 2001
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