The boreal rainforests, as defined by DellaSalla et al., 2011 occur over a very restricted portion of the boreal zone, where otherwise “high-severity stand-replacing events, such as frequent fires” are the more common disturbance regimes. DellaSalla: “these [boreal rainforests] include the Pacific Coast of North America north of ~55°N latitude (chapter 2), the northern half of the inland rainforest of Northwestern NorthAmerica (chapter 3), much of the wet forests of Eastern Canada (chapter 4)”. The “wet forests of Eastern Canada” include significant portions of the NS landscape, view Dellasalla et al., 2011, Fig 1.1b and Fig 1-6, and Claydon et al., 2011. Also: Canada’s other rainforest. NS does not lie within the boreal zone but does occur within the “hemiboreal” subzone “which is a transitional area lying immediately to the south of the boreal zone that is usually included in the boreal zone by Europeans but excluded by North Americans” (Brandt, 2009), i.e. North Americans generally do not use the term “hemiboreal”, but just consider it to be part of the temperate zone.
Claydon et al., 2011 (chapter 4 in DellaSala, D.A. (Editor, 2011) describe in some detail the “Perhumid” Hemiboreal Forests of Eastern Canada, in which NS figures prominently. Based on the lichen communities, it is argued the Perihumid Hemiboreal forests [or at least a portion of them] should be regarded as true rainforests.
The most striking indicators of ecological parallelism between the perhumid and oceanic forests of Eastern Canada and those that have been categorized as rainforests (particularly montane rainforests or cloud forests) in other regions, are their epiphytic lichens.- Claydon et al., 2009
One of those indicator lichens is boreal felt lichen
Clayden S.R., Cameron R.P., McCarthy J.W. (2011) Perhumid Boreal and Hemiboreal Forests of Eastern Canada. In: Temperate and Boreal Rainforests of the World: Ecology and Conservation. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-008-8_4
DellaSala D.A., Alaback P., Spribille T., von Wehrden H., Nauman R.S. (2011) Just What Are Temperate and Boreal Rainforests?. In: Temperate and Boreal Rainforests of the World: Ecology and Conservation. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-008-8_1
DellaSala, D.A. (Editor, 2011) Temperate and Boreal Rainforests of the World: Ecology and Conservation. Island Press, Washington, DC https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-008-8 View TOC (11 chapters)