Download ALPINE TUNDRA ECOSYSTEM Plants and Animals of the Alpine

ALPINE TUNDRA ECOSYSTEM
Access to "the land above the trees" is the single most distinctive aspect of Rocky Mountain National Park.
Trail Ridge Road, the highest in any national park, transports you easily to this realm of open sky, tiny but
brilliant flowers, and harsh climate. Approximately one-third of this national park is above the limit where
trees may grow in northern Colorado.
The Alpine Ecosystem starting at elevations from 11,000 to 11,500 feet, depending on exposure, is an area
of extremes. Strong, frequent winds and cold temperatures help limit what plants can grow there. Most
alpine plants are perennials. Many plants are dwarfed, but their few blossoms may be full-sized. Cushion
plants, looking like ground-hugging clumps of moss, escape the strong winds blowing a few inches above
them. Cushion plants may also have long taproots extending deep into the rocky soil. Many flowering plants
of the tundra have dense hairs on stems and leaves to provide wind protection or red-colored pigments
capable of converting the sun's light rays into heat. Some plants take two or more years to form flower
buds, which survive the winter below the surface and then open and produce fruit with seeds in the few
weeks of summer.
Where tundra soil is well-developed, grasses and sedges are common. Non-flowering lichens cling to rocks
and soil. Their enclosed algal cells can photosynthesize at any temperature above 32° F, and the outer
fungal layers can absorb more than their own weight in water. The adaptations for survival of drying winds
and cold may make tundra vegetation seem very hardy, but in some respects the tundra is very fragile.
Repeated footsteps often destroy tundra plants, leaving exposed soil to blow away, and recovery may take
hundreds of years.
Plants and Animals of the Alpine Ecosystem
Shrubs:
Willow
Grasses and Grass-like Plants:
Alpine Blue Grass
Alpine Timothy
Skyline Blue Grass
Spike Trisetum
Tufted Hair Grass
Spreading Wheatgrass
Kobresia
Spike Wood-Rush
Pyrennian Sedge
Forbs:
Alpine Avens
Queen's Crown
Alpine Bistort
Marsh Marigold
American Bistort
Mertensia
Pygmy Bitterroot
Rydbergia
Snow Buttercup
Alpine Paintbrush
Dwarf Clover
Alpine Phlox
Parry's Clover
Moss Pink
One-Headed Daisy
Alpine Sandwort
Black-Headed Daisy
Saxifrage
Elephantella
Sky Pilot
Alpine Forget-Me-Not
Arctic Gentian
King's Crown
Prairie Falcon
Rosy Finch
Horned Lark
Water Pipit
Badger
Bobcat
Chipmunk
Coyote
Mule Deer
Elk
Long Tailed Weasel
Red Fox
Bighorn Sheep
Ground Squirrel
Alpine Sorrel
Alpine Wallflower
Blue Columbine
Birds:
White-Tailed Ptarmigan
Common Raven
White-Crowned Sparrrow
Mammals:
Snowshoe Hare
Mountain Lion
Yellow-Bellied Marmot
Pine Marten
Deer Mouse
Pika
Pocket Gopher
Vole
Bushy-Tailed Wood Rat
Text and Data source: www.nps.gov/romo/naturescience/alpine_tundra_ecosystem.htm