1. Tundra By: Ian Pharr

2. Animals of the Tundra Animals of tundra biomes include arctic fox, polar bears, snowshoe hares, and musk ox along with wolves caribou and killer whales live in the water surrounding tundra biomes. Even though there is not much biodiversity, with only about 48 species of land mammals occurring in the tundra biome, there are surprisingly large numbers of each species. The tundra animals mainly are slightly modified forms of deer, bears, foxes, wolves, rodents, hares, and shrews. In North America, there are large caribou herds, which are called reindeer in Eurasia, which feed on plants and lichens. The marshy regions of the tundra are where migratory birds like plovers, sandpipers, and harlequin flock to in the summers. As is evident, the Tundra Biome is not a useless and cold wasteland. In fact, its very nature makes the environment very fragile, and the animals and plants that have made the tundra their home have adapted themselves incredibly intricately to its short, although abundant, summers and cold, long winters.

3. Plant Life The extremely inhospitable conditions of the tundra biome make it very hard for plants to grow, yet there are as many as 1,700 different plant species that grow here. The tundra plants consist mostly of mosses, grasses, lichens, sedges, and shrubs. About 400 types of flowers bloom in the growing season, which lasts just for 50-60 days. Except for a few birches in the lower altitudes, no trees grow in the tundra. Because of the permafrost, trees cannot send their roots into the ground. Being too dry and cold for vegetation to grow, the Antarctica tundra is mostly covered by large expanses of ice fields. However, in some parts of the region, especially the Antarctic Peninsula, there are areas where there is rocky soil which can support vegetation. The plant species that exist here are aquatic and terrestrial species of algae, which occur in the exposed soil and rock areas around the shore, liverworts, mosses, and lichens.

4. What are the characteristics of Tundra Biomes? Extremely cold temperatures and frozen, treeless landscapes characterize the tundra biome. While some sources claim that the word ‘tundra’ originates from the Kildin Sami term ‘tundar’, which means ‘treeless mountain track’ or ‘uplands’, others say that it has been derived from the Finnish ‘tunturia’, meaning ‘barren land’. The tundra is divided into two types: The Arctic Tundra, which is also present in Antarctica, and Alpine Tundra.

5. Where are Tundra Biomes found? The Arctic tundra lies between the North Pole and the taiga or the coniferous forests. In North America, it occurs in Greenland, Canada and Northern Alaska, in northern Europe, it is mainly found in Scandinavia, and in northern Asia, it is found in Siberia. The Antarctic tundra occurs on various Antarctic as well as sub- Antarctic islands, which include the Kerguelen Islands, the South Sandwich Islands, and South Georgia. The Alpine tundra can be found at very high elevations on frozen mountaintop regions. In North America, it occurs in Mexico, U.S.A., Canada, and Alaska. In South America, it is found in the Andes Mountains. In northern Europe, it is found in Sweden, Russia, Norway, and Finland. In Africa, it can be found in Mt. Kilimanjaro. And in Asia, it occurs in the Himalayan Mountains, which is located in Southern Asia, and in Mt. Fuji, in Japan.