LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Biomes: Tundras
built 248 days ago
Naturalists have ... noted that as one goes up a mountain, the vegatation zones tend to mirror the larger biomes as the temperature and precipitation change. These changes in vegetation types are sometimes called "life zones". The classic example is the San Francisco Mountains in northern Arizona. On the north side of the mountains the vegetation at the base is a scrub desert changing to a desert dominated by the dry adapted trees pinyon pine and juniper. As the elevation increases the forest changes to Ponderosa Pine, then to a spruce-douglas fir habitat very similar to the taiga, and finally changes to an alpine zone similar to tundra in its appearance on the top of the mountain peaks.
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The locations of these different biomes across the face of Earth are shown in different colors in the map* above. The Arctic tundra is light tan (ice is white). Mid-Latitude deciduous forests are greenish-yellow and yellowish-green. Deserts are mostly gray. Tropical rainforests are green. Tropical savannahs are light green and dark yellow.
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Timberline in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, showing the striking transition (ecotone) between the alpine tundra and coniferous forest biomes. Engelmann spruce at timberline become dwarfed and windswept by the ice-laden winds. The zone of timberline trees is called "krummholz," a German word meaning "crooked wood." Trees cannot survive in the frozen soil (permafrost) of the tundra. Instead this region is dominated by thick-rooted perennials and prostrate, deciduous shrubs.
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Tundras