Tundra Habitat Animals And Plants

Alaskas tundra climates are characterized by a short growing.

Tundra habitat animals and plants. Snow covers the ground for nine months of the year when plants cannot grow. Home to animals including Arctic foxes Vulpes lagopus polar bears Ursus maritimus gray wolves Canis lupus caribou Rangifer tarandus snow geese Anser caerulescens and musk oxen Ovibos moschatus the Arctic tundra is changing in broad and somewhat unpredictable ways as global average temperatures rise. Tundra 2 alpine high altitude tundra and 3 the maritime tundra present on Alaskas western and southwestern coast.

A mountains habitat is unlike any other. Habitats for Plants and Animals. Tundra wildlife includes small mammalssuch as Norway lemmings Lemmus lemmus arctic hares Lepis arcticus and arctic ground squirrels Spermophilus parryii and large mammals such as caribou Rangifer tarandus.

The habitat has a long and brutal winter and the barren landscape provides many challenges. Plants and animals in tundras. The word tundra derived from a finnish word which means treeless land.

The prominent plants include varieties of mosses lichens sedges perennial grasses and cushion plants. The dominant plant species of tundra habitats are sedges low and dwarf shrubs and graminoids interspersed with forbs in addition to mat and cushion-forming plants and scattered bryophytes nonvascular plants. The harsh climate of the tundra imposes such formidable conditions on life that only the hardiest plants and animals can survive in this environment.

Some common plants include the bearberry arctic moss caribou moss diamond leaf willow labrador tea pasque flower and the tufted saxifrage. Tundra are the coldest areas on the planet and are quite different from every other habitat on earth. Below are some really neat facts about the arctic tundra.

The tundra is a terrestrial biome that is characterized by extreme cold low biological diversity long winters brief growing seasons and limited drainage. However the further you go up a mountain the less diverse it gets. Many animals found on the tundra are migratory species moving in to eat the plants in the summer but leaving again before the hard winter.