Colorado's Forest Types

A number of forest types exist throughout Colorado. The most extensive are spruce-fir, ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, aspen and piñon-juniper. Other forest types in Colorado include Douglas-fir, southwestern white pine, bristlecone pine, limber pine, Colorado blue spruce and the cottonwood-willow combination found in many riparian areas.

Ecoregions in Colorado

Issues and events that influence forest condition often occur across forest types, ownerships and political boundaries. As a result, scientists, researchers and land managers must also find a way to assess and treat these issues in a boundaryless way. Ecoregions often are used as a non-political land division to help researchers study forest condition. An ecoregion is a large landscape area that has relatively consistent patterns of topography, geology, soils, vegetation, climate and natural processes (Shinneman et al 2000)1. Many smaller ecosystems may reside within an ecoregion.

Colorado's forest types

Colorado contains parts of six major ecoregions (Bailey 1995)2. The most prominent is the Southern Rockies, which occupies most of the state's central and western portions and the Great Plains-Palouse Dry Steppe in the eastern half of the state. Other ecoregions include the Intermountain Semi-Desert and Desert, the Nevada-Utah Mountains and the Colorado Plateau. Forests are found in all ecoregions of the state, but the Southern Rockies contain the most forested area and the greatest variety of forest types.

Forest Types Overview

Forest type, or forest cover, refers to the dominant tree species in the overstory of a given site. The distribution of forest types across the landscape is determined by factors such as climate, soil, elevation, aspect and disturbance history (Rogers and others 2001). A number of Colorado's forests are characterized as disturbance driven. The life history of these forest types evolved with a cycle of natural disturbance such as wildfire, insect infestations, flooding, avalanches, windstorms or disease infections. These disturbances served to periodically rejuvenate forests, ensuring a variety of forest types, age classes and densities across the landscape. Due to lack of disturbance, the majority of Colorado's forests are concentrated in older age classes, with virtually no significant forest in the zero to 20-year age classes.

Several forest types exist throughout Colorado; spruce-fir, ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, aspen and piñon-juniper are the most extensive. Follow the links for brief descriptions of these major forest types.

Other forest types in Colorado include Douglas-fir, southwestern white pine, bristlecone pine, limber pine, Colorado blue spruce and the cottonwood-willow combination found in many riparian areas.

Text Citations

Information about Colorado's forest types has been reproduced from the 2001 Report on the Condition of Colorado's Forest (1.25 MB PDF).

For more descriptions of high country forest types, see the 2008 Report: The Health of Colorado's Forests (9.5 MB PDF).

In-line Citations

Bailey, R.G. 1995. Descriptions of the eco regions of the United States. (2nd ed. rev. and expanded). Misc. Publ. No. 1391. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service.

Shinneman, D.; McClellan, R.; Smith, R. 2000. The State of the Southern Rockies Eco region. Netherlands, CO: Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project.