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Much of the ecoregion at lies beneath glaciers and icefields and is largely devoid of vegetation. Where the ground is vegetated, communities are dominated by dwarf and low shrub communities, including mountain heath and ericaceous shrubs. Subalpine forests of alpine fir, mountain hemlock, and Sitka spruce dominate middle
Mount Elbert rises through multiple biotic zones, with alpine tundra at its peak.. The Rocky Mountains range in latitude between the Liard River in British Columbia (at 59° N) and the Rio Grande in New Mexico (at 35° N), and in height up to the highest peak, Mount Elbert at 14,440 feet (4,400 m), taking in great valleys such as the Rocky Mountain Trench and San Luis Valley.
Alpine tundra is a type of natural region or biome that does not contain trees because it is at high elevation, with an associated harsh climate. As the latitude of a location approaches the poles, the threshold elevation for alpine tundra gets lower until it reaches sea level, and alpine tundra merges with polar tundra .
The Interior Yukon–Alaska alpine tundra ecoregion (WWF ID: NA1111) covers alpine, sub-alpine, and boreal forest areas along the cordillera (chain of mountain ranges) of Interior Alaska and south-central Yukon Territory. Geologically, they are the disjunct uplands of the Yukon–Tanana terrane plus a southern extension of the Brooks Range. The ...
The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial factor in shaping plant community, biodiversity, metabolic processes and ecosystem dynamics for montane ecosystems. [1]
The slopes are covered with a variety of lichens and other tundra plants, depending on altitude and drainage. The low-lying, wetter areas are similar to the surrounding Beringia lowland tundra ecoregion but the uplands are generally drier and dominated by sedges such as Eriophorum vaginatum and scrub such as the ericas Arctostaphylos alpina, Vaccinium vitis-idaea or Empetrum nigrum or mountain ...
The tundra is an extremely harsh, cold, windy, and unique ecosystem found on the extreme north and south latitudes of our Earth. The soil consists mostly of frozen permafrost, which makes it difficult for extended root systems to grow, and water to drain and support a wide variety of plant life.
Terrestrial ecosystems occupy 55,660,000 mi 2 (144,150,000 km 2), or 28.26% of Earth's surface. [5] Major plant taxa in terrestrial ecosystems are members of the division Magnoliophyta (flowering plants), of which there are about 275,000 species, and the division Pinophyta (conifers), of which there are about 500 species.