The Bare And Rocky Ground Can Only Support What Kinds Of Plants And Animals?

Did you know that the Arctic Tundra is the earth's youngest biome? Information technology was formed ten,000 years ago. Located at latitudes 55° to lxx° Due north, the tundra is a vast and treeless state which covers nigh 20% of the Globe's surface, circumnavigating the North pole. It is usually very cold, and the land is pretty stark. Almost all tundras are located in the Northern Hemisphere. Small tundra-like areas do exist in Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere, but because it is much colder than the Arctic, the ground is always covered with snow and ice. Weather condition are non right for a true tundra to class. Average annual temperatures are -70°F (-56°C).

Tundra comes from the Finnish word "tunturia", which means a barren land. The ground is permanently frozen 10 inches to 3 feet (25 to 100 cm) down so that trees can't grow there. The blank and sometimes rocky basis can but support low growing plants similar mosses, heaths, and lichen. In the wintertime information technology is cold and dark and in the summertime, when the snow and the top layer of permafrost melt, it is very soggy and the tundra is covered with marshes, lakes, bogs and streams that breed thousands of insects and attract many migrating birds.

The master seasons are winter and summer. Spring and fall are only brusque periods betwixt winter and summertime. The tundra is the world's coldest and driest biomes. The average almanac temperature is -xviii° F (-28° C). Nights can last for weeks when the sun barely rises during some months in the winter, and the temperature can drop to -94° F (-70° C). During the summer the sun shines most 24 hours a day, which is why the Arctic is also called the State of the Midnight Sun. Summer are unremarkably warm. Temperatures tin get upwards to 54° F (12° C), but it can get equally cold as 37° F (iii° C). Average summertime temperatures range from 37° to threescore°F (3° to 16°C).

The Arctic tundra is as well a windy place and winds can blow between 30 to threescore miles (48 to 97 kilometers) per 60 minutes. Of the Due north American, Scandinavian and Russian tundras, the Scandinavian tundra is the warmest, with winter temperatures averaging 18°F (-8°C)

The tundra is basically like a desert when information technology comes to atmospheric precipitation. Just about 6 - x inches of atmospheric precipitation (by and large snow) fall each year. Beneath the soil is the tundra'due south permafrost, a permanently frozen layer of earth. During the short summers the superlative layer of soil may thaw simply long enough to let plants grow and reproduce. Since it can't sink into the basis, water from melting permafrost and snow forms lakes and marshes each summer.

At that place is barely whatever vegetation in the tundra, just about one,700 different species, which isn't very much. These are mostly shrubs, sedges, mosses, lichens and grasses. There are about 400 varieties of flowers. The growing flavor is only most 50 to threescore days long. There are no trees, except for some birches in the lower latitudes. The footing is always frozen below the top layer of soil, so trees can't send their roots down. Willows practice grow on some parts of the tundra but only as low carpets well-nigh three inches (8 cm) high. Nearly plants grow in a dumbo mat of roots which has developed over thousands of years. The soil is very low in nutrients and minerals, except where fauna debris fertilize the soil.

Surprisingly in that location are animals in the tundra. Although in that location isn't a lot of biodiversity, but 48 species of land mammals are found on the tundra, there are a lot of each species. These consist of slightly modified shrews, hares, rodents, wolves, foxes, bears and deer. In that location are huge herds of caribou in North America (known as reindeer in Eurasia) which feed on lichens and plants. There are also smaller herds of musk-oxen. Wolves, wolverines, arctic foxes, and polar bears are the predators of the tundra. Smaller mammals are snowshoe rabbits and lemmings. There aren't many different species of insects in the tundra, but black flies, deer flies, mosquitoes and "no-see-ums" (tiny biting midges) can make the tundra a miserable place to be in the summer. Mosquitoes tin can keep themselves from freezing by replacing the water in their bodies with a chemical called glycerol. It works like an antifreeze and allows them to survive under the snowfall during the winter. The marshy tundra is a great identify for migratory birds similar the harlequin duck, sandpipers and plovers.

The tundra is 1 of Earth'due south iii major carbon dioxide sinks. A carbon dioxide sink is a biomass which takes in more than carbon dioxide than it releases. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. During the short summer tundra's plants take in carbon dioxide, sunlight and water in the process of photosynthesis. Plants unremarkably requite off carbon dioxide afterwards they die and decompose. Simply considering of the short, cool summer and freezing winter temperatures, plants tin can't decompose. Remains of plants thousands of years sometime take been found in the tundra permafrost. In this way the tundra traps the carbon dioxide and removes it from the atmosphere. Today global warming is melting the permafrost of the tundra and every year several anxiety of tundra are lost. Equally the tundra melts, the plant mass decomposes and returns carbon dioxide to the temper.

The tundra is a very fragile environment. The extremely cold temperatures makes it a difficult environment to survive in during the winter, and plants and animals have a difficult fourth dimension coping with any extra stresses and disturbances. More people moving to the tundra to piece of work in the mines and oil rigs have created towns and more roads. Some fauna'due south movements to traditional feeding and denning grounds have been disrupted past these obstacles. When they try to pass through a town they are often scared away or shot. With their feeding patterns disrupted, many polar bears have starved. The Alaskan oil pipeline was congenital across a caribou migration road. In some places the pipeline has been raised higher up the ground so the caribou can pass under it. Pesticides take been used to control the hordes of insects. Thousands of migrating birds come to the tundra considering of the arable insects. Through the nutrient chain the pesticides reach many of the animals that live on the tundra.

Pollution from mining and drilling for oil has polluted the air, lakes and rivers. The land effectually some nickel mines in Russia has become and then polluted that the plants in the surrounding area have died. Footprints and tire tracks tin can be visible for many years afterwards they were made. When the sun hits the ruts it causes the permafrost to melt. This causes erosion and the ruts go bigger, and eventually the ruts plough into gullies. Tracks made during WW II have grown so big that some of them are now lakes.

The tundra is not a common cold and useless wasteland. Information technology is a very frail environment and the plants and animals that have fabricated their habitation on the tundra biome have made some incredible adaptations to the long, cold winters and the short just abundant summers. They alive on a precarious border and the smallest stresses tin bring well-nigh their destruction.

past Whitney S. 2002

Bibliography:

Kaplan, Due east. (1996). Biomes of the Globe: Tundra. Hong Kong: Marshall Cavendish Corporation.

"Encyclopedia.com - Results for tundra", http://world wide web.encyclopedia.com/manufactures/13116.html, (June 2000)

"The Earth's Biomes: Tundra", http://www.latymer-upper.org/geog/sixth/tundra%20the%20not%20do%20barren%20land.htm, (July 2000).

Photograph Credit: "Interface", http://www.nsbsd.k12.ak.us/PROJECTS/arctic_year/anaktuvuk/interface.htm, (July 2000).
*Bank check out this website for great info on life on the tundra and the people who live in that location!

This work by Blue Planet Biomes is licensed nether CC BY-NC-SA 4.0