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Tundra
By: Ian Pharr
Animals of the Tundra
• Animals of tundra biomes include arctic fox, polar bears, snowshoe hares,
and musk ox along with wolves caribou and killer whales live in the water
surrounding tundra biomes.
• Even though there is not much biodiversity, with only about 48 species of
land mammals occurring in the tundra biome, there are surprisingly large
numbers of each species. The tundra animals mainly are slightly modified
forms of deer, bears, foxes, wolves, rodents, hares, and shrews. In North
America, there are large caribou herds, which are called reindeer in
Eurasia, which feed on plants and lichens. The marshy regions of the
tundra are where migratory birds like plovers, sandpipers, and harlequin
flock to in the summers.
As is evident, the Tundra Biome is not a useless and cold wasteland. In
fact, its very nature makes the environment very fragile, and the animals
and plants that have made the tundra their home have adapted
themselves incredibly intricately to its short, although abundant, summers
and cold, long winters.
Plant Life
• The extremely inhospitable conditions of the tundra biome make it
very hard for plants to grow, yet there are as many as 1,700
different plant species that grow here. The tundra plants consist
mostly of mosses, grasses, lichens, sedges, and shrubs. About 400
types of flowers bloom in the growing season, which lasts just for
50-60 days. Except for a few birches in the lower altitudes, no trees
grow in the tundra. Because of the permafrost, trees cannot send
their roots into the ground.
Being too dry and cold for vegetation to grow, the Antarctica tundra
is mostly covered by large expanses of ice fields. However, in some
parts of the region, especially the Antarctic Peninsula, there are
areas where there is rocky soil which can support vegetation. The
plant species that exist here are aquatic and terrestrial species of
algae, which occur in the exposed soil and rock areas around the
shore, liverworts, mosses, and lichens.
What are the characteristics of Tundra
Biomes?
• Extremely cold temperatures and frozen, treeless
landscapes characterize the tundra biome. While
some sources claim that the word ‘tundra’
originates from the Kildin Sami term ‘tundar’,
which means ‘treeless mountain track’ or
‘uplands’, others say that it has been derived
from the Finnish ‘tunturia’, meaning ‘barren land’.
The tundra is divided into two types: The Arctic
Tundra, which is also present in Antarctica, and
Alpine Tundra.
Where are Tundra Biomes found?
• The Arctic tundra lies between the North Pole and the taiga or the
coniferous forests. In North America, it occurs in Greenland, Canada
and Northern Alaska, in northern Europe, it is mainly found in
Scandinavia, and in northern Asia, it is found in Siberia.
The Antarctic tundra occurs on various Antarctic as well as subAntarctic islands, which include the Kerguelen Islands, the South
Sandwich Islands, and South Georgia.
The Alpine tundra can be found at very high elevations on frozen
mountaintop regions. In North America, it occurs in Mexico, U.S.A.,
Canada, and Alaska. In South America, it is found in the Andes
Mountains. In northern Europe, it is found in Sweden, Russia,
Norway, and Finland. In Africa, it can be found in Mt. Kilimanjaro.
And in Asia, it occurs in the Himalayan Mountains, which is located
in Southern Asia, and in Mt. Fuji, in Japan.