Building Biomes - Subarctics & Taiga | Worldbuilding

Episode 16: Ecology Part 7 - Subarctics & Taiga
In this video we discuss worldbuilding Subarctic climates, their geography and ecosystems, and looking at how plants and animals here have adapted to the harsh cold weather.
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WORLDBUILDING CORNER: www.worldbuildingcorner.com
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All music, images, and other media used in this video are available for commercial use with Creative Commons licensing, found on www.pixabay.com and www.pexels.com.
The subsequent listed images are permitted for use under the following Creative Commons license: creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Map of Earth image credit: Strebe
Continental Climate Map image credit: Ali Zifan

[@StoryGirl83]

I appreciate that you give examples of plants and animals that you have created for your world and I would love to know more about how you create the creatures for your world.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Absolutely! Do you mean where I draw my inspiration from? Or how I determine which traits to give them? In regards to inspiration, I draw most of my inspiration from real life! Overwhelmingly, real life has such an abundance of weird and unique organisms that are often even more bizarre than some fictional ones haha. I am also trying to keep things as 'real' as possible for this series, so that people can relate to what I am creating. In regards to determining which traits to give the creatures I am creating, once I have given them the 'expected' traits for creatures within their environment, I often brainstorm things that I think would be cool. In some cases it's giving a creature a feature that is fictional, like giving a lizard fire-breath to make a dragon for example. In the case of this video's creature, the Velatrox, I designed them with the thought that social and intelligent bears would be cool! They're a take on our own hunter/gatherer origins but turned up to 11. I do however like to hope that the traits I give them are logical for their environments and niches. I hope this answers your question!

[@Lilas.Duveteux]

Many taiga flora is very rich in oil and vitamin C. The colonists who explored the coldest regions of America weren't looking for solely for pelts, but for many medicinal plants as well. A lot of them actually grow in quite extreme conditions. Black spruce (the dominant species in this climate zone, although they are foundable in warmer climates, it's just harder to do so) was an important source of food and medicine for the Native Americans who called these icy lands their home. The black spruce also provide a very flexible wood, ideal for pump wood, or if a society is less industrialized, flexible rods to make tents. That is amazing for worldbuilding politics: a certain colonial power has to deal with a scurvy epidemic, it has on it's metropolis a thriving economy of apothecaries...So black spruce was more likely an important ressource. And black spruce enjoys very cold climates. It also is amazing for tabletop games: the players must venture out in the deadly cold in order to retrieve the cure for an epidemic in a village.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

This is really fascinating! I plan on looking into herbalism and 'magical plants' as a worldbuilding topic in the future, so the taiga biome will certainly feature when it comes to important flora! Thank you for the detailed input :)

[@arixsalas6811]

I truly love this series and i like the way Matthew (at least for this comment) introduce us to his world This Channel deserves more audience

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Thank you! I'm enjoying presenting the world as the series expands. Hoping it's a world that people enjoy and can become something people really connect with!

[@NovaRuner]

Where I live we have a mix of sub-arctic, and temperate forests. I live in northern British Columbia, Canada. This is very informative about my real world home, but also fascinating in how it can be used for fictional worlds. Excellent job Mat!

[@trollunderbridge2292]

So, to date the contenders for civilization-creating species I can remember are: Tropical primates Savanna velocoraptors? Octopus Bears

[@eustress7428]

I live in a country with continental climate, and there is a mythology that the ancestors are born from a bear woman (who married with sky prince). And in locus, this bear-ancestor thing might happen more literally, which would be fascinating. edit : Holy cow you really made it!

[@Lilas.Duveteux]

As someone who lived and visited continental humid climates, these places are of extreme temperatures, that can very a lot per region. They aren't as bad as cold and temperate deserts, but they can get pretty extreme. The hottest place I ever been to in my life is Rostov-no-Donu. Russia has a reputation for being cold, well, Russia is also big, and some regions can get HOT, very HOT in the summer. The two weeks we spent there for our dying babushka, I was near fainting all the time. My dad told me that on some certain summer days, his family would use the balcony to cook eggs. In my hometown in northern Ontario, May and June are just uncomfortable to put anything on, because it would be cold in the mourning, but in the afternoon unbearably hot, especially in the warm clothes we put on to go on the school bus. Oddly enough, sun burn isn't that much of a concern, because the light rays are much less intense at higher latitudes. It just gets hot, very hot. That could be a good piece of worldbuilding I think, have people and creatures adapt to these extreme colds and heats on regular basis.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Great point, the continentality of places like Russia and Canada mean they are less moderated by the ocean, so you're absolutely right, temperatures can be relatively extreme. They may not be the hottest or coldest places on the planet, but have some of the widest temperature swings, which makes surviving challenging, even for a hardy species like us!

[@Lilas.Duveteux]

@@WorldbuildingCorner Oddly enough, I prefer temperature extremes to humidity, since hot and humid, I cannot breath nor sweat comfortably, and when the weather gets cold, the heat loss is quite rapid, while minus thirty is quite bearable as it's dry. Also, in continental climates, soil composition and topography play a huge role in habitability, in fact as big or even bigger than temperature. Basically, a clay-rich soil or a valley can provide very good places for agriculture, far more poleward than usual. Also, spring in colder continental climate is not nice at all. Spring is the most unpleasant season for North Canadians. Also, cold continental climates near sea shore are another ball game (cold ocean currents, offshore winds and large lakes). In some of those regions, in the more extreme towns and cities, schools and businesses would remain open even if the amount of snowfall is sufficient to block doors and cars. Most places will close in such situations (and many Québécois have treasured childhood memories of such meteorological events), but there are some small regions of the world where such occurrences are common place. It's quite sad that it's becoming rarer nowadays. Also, in Canadian Prairies, snowstorms are considered a good thing, because much of the agriculture benefits from it, since these places are quite dry, and most natural irrigation for fields come in the form of snow melt, snow which accumulates during snowstorms. Also, the areas that have snowy climates are also prone to freezing rain, and if freezing rain continue for a long time, it can be quite disastrous, especially in places dominated by hardwood forests. Also, with flat land and mountainous regions, spring is an especially dangerous part of the year in continental climates with a lot of snow fall, since all that melted snow needs to go somewhere. In the east of Canada, we at least have some yummy maple syrup. The flora of these regions tend to depend of these extreme shifts of temperature, and they are kind of part of the natural cycle. The people inhabiting these regions tend to be very chill about the weather, and in what many other countries consider natural disasters, Canadians and Russians consider "fond memories".

[@jessesainthimmel]

This whole series is excellent and super useful, thank you so much.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

You are very welcome! Glad you are enjoying it so far 🙂

[@haradaeirneralendaer6874]

Superb work. I hope the channel grows.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Thank you for the positive feedback! :)

[@redfox4561]

This episode made me think of the anime character Taiga...I never knew that's what this climate was called but now I'm gonna always think of her since I live in this climate myself lol

[@Okamikurainya]

With plant species that utilise self-immolation for seed dispersal, wouldn't this lead to a gradual increase in carbon in the atmosphere? The climate may not be feeling it at this point in the timeline, but I imagine that Locus will be feeling the effects of global warming far sooner than here on Earth... Especially once sapient cultivation of the plants outside their own environment begins... The lightning rod plants would also contribute to this, since wildfires would likely be far more common on Locus than on Earth. Very interesting stuff! I'm excited to see how the world evolves.

[@Thaumh]

#4: The Larch. . . . The, Larch.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

And now... number one, The Larch.

[@sunenkhbayar3060]

Add magefoauna it well be better and cooler.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Typo or no, megafauna is very cool, and mage-fauna is also cool!

[@BanValsimot]

Might be cold here but at least no super scary animals like in other regions