Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests

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Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests are a temperate and humid biome.

Typically, they occur in warm and rainy climates, sometimes with a distinct dry season. A dry season occurs in the winter in East Asia and in summer on the wet fringe of the Mediterranean climate zones. Other areas have a fairly even distribution of rainfall, and annual rainfall is typically over 600 millimetres (24 inches) and often over 1500 millimetres (60 inches). Temperatures are typically moderate except in parts of Asia such as Ussuriland where temperate forests can occur despite extremely harsh winters due to the heavy summer monsoon rains. Elsewhere winter temperatures typically range from maximum of 10-15°C (50-59°F) to minimum of 0-8°C (32-4 6°F). Except for old palaeosols in southern Australia, most soils in this region are fertile and usually influenced by glaciation or mountain building. In southern Australia, extremely infertile, nutrient deficient soils give a very different biome with evergreen eucalypt trees whose small, hard leaves are adapted to stay on the tree for a long period as replacement more often is far too costly as there is almost no available phosphorus. On the much more fertile soils of other continents, deciduous trees with star-shaped leaves that are shed every autumn predominate.