page_title: Adirondack Mountains
section_title: Ecology
hierarchical_section_title: Adirondack Mountains / Ecology
caption_attribution_description: English: Spotted Northern Turtle @ Wild Center Tupper Lake, NY
context_page_description: The Adirondack Mountains form a massif in northeastern New York, United States. Its boundaries correspond roughly to the boundaries of Adirondack Park. They cover about 5,000 square miles. The mountains form a roughly circular dome, about 160 miles in diameter and about 1 mile high. The current relief owes much to glaciation. There are more than 200 lakes around the mountains, including lakes George, Placid, and Lake Tear of the Clouds, on Mount Marcy, which is the highest source of the Hudson River.
context_section_description: The Adirondack Mountains form the southernmost part of the Eastern forest-boreal transition ecoregion. They are heavily forested, and contain one of the southernmost distribution taiga in North America. The forests of the Adirondacks include spruce, pine and deciduous trees. Lumbering, once an important industry, has been much restricted by the creation of the park.
  The mountains include many wetlands, of which there are three kinds:
  Swamps, any wetland including trees and shrubs
  Marshes, wetlands with water stagnation. These may support bullfrogs and spring peepers, spotted salamanders, great blue heron, American bittern, and painted turtles. Pickerel weed often forms large colonies.
  Bogs, characterized by plants like sphagnum moss, orchids, and pitcher plants
  Common birds include the boreal chickadees, Canada jays, spruce grouse, black-backed woodpeckers, common loons and crossbills. Mammals include raccoon, beaver, river otter, bobcat, moose, black bear, and coyote. The now extirpated eastern cougar formerly roamed the Adirondacks.. 
  Nearly 60 percent of the park is covered with northern hardwood forest. Above 2600 feet (c. 792 meters) conditions are too poor for hardwoods to thrive, and these trees become mixed with or replaced by balsam fir and red spruce. Above 3500 feet (c. 1,067 meters) black spruce replace red. Higher still only trees short enough to be covered in snow during the winter can survive.
  Only a tiny fraction of the area above the tree line is classified as having an alpine climate.
caption: Spotted turtle at the Wild Center.
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