Here the two great forests of the Eastern United States, the Southern Oak-Hickory hardwood forest and the Northern Maple-Beech hardwood forest overlap. Rather than being dominated by a single tree species, our forests have an even mixture of oaks, maples, hickories, beech, birches, ashes, cherries and others. This makes our autumn foliage more brilliant. The varied forests support a wider variety of insects,birds and animals, resulting in a high level of biodiversity.