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16 North American Natural Resources: Timber and Forest Products

of trees in temperate rain forests is not large. There may be hundreds of different tree species in a tropical rainforest, but only 10 to 20 in a temperate rainforest. The trees here tend to have needle-shaped leaves and can live from 500 to 1,000 years! Temperature rainforests are located in coastal areas, where the moist air from the ocean meets high mountains and creates a lot of precipitation. Mexican Dry Forests Along the Pacific coast of Mexico, a rather unique ecosystem exists: tropical dry forests. These forests are similar to rainforests in that they receive a great deal of rain. However, a dry forest also has a long period of drought each year. These droughts can last for several months, which requires the organisms living there to face unique challenges. Most of the trees in a dry forest, such as the ones in Mexico, are deciduous. They lose their leaves during the dry season. A tree loses much of its moisture through its

A pine–oak forest in Alvaro Obregon, Mexico, during the dry season.