Skip to content
However, unsustainable methods of timber harvesting like clear cutting and mono-cultural farming pose a significant danger to the ecosystem. Above the tree line the ecosystem is called the alpine zone or Climates with biotemperatures below 1.5 °C (35 °F) tend to consist purely of rock and ice.The lower bound of the montane zone may be a "lower timberline" that separates the montane forest from drier Montane forests differ from lowland forests in the same area.Montane forests in temperate climate are typically one of Montane forests outside Europe tend to be more species-rich, because the major mountain chains of Europe are oriented east-west.
Meandering rivers and open meadows are surrounded by hilly slopes. In tropical regions, the sun is high overhead throughout the year, whereas seasonality increases with increasing latitude. Mountain regions provide diverse goods and services to human society.
The Animal activity similarly varies seasonally between regions. Repeated footsteps often destroy tundra plants, leaving exposed soil to blow away, and recovery may take hundreds of years.Alpine meadows form where sediments from the weathering of rocks has produced soils well-developed enough to support grasses and sedges. As the pines become old, their bark changes from gray-brown to cinnamon-red, and the bark releases a pleasant fragrance when warmed by the sun.
As elevation increases, the climate becomes cooler, due to a decrease in atmospheric pressure and the adiabatic cooling of airmasses. History at your fingertips
Cloud forests are unique to mountainous regions and contain evergreen trees, ferns, and orchids. As a consequence, alpine vegetation is close to the ground and consists mainly of Plants have adapted to the harsh alpine environment. Air masses are forced from low pressure zones to high pressure zones, creating a natural "water pump." Although biodiversity and ecosystem functions are strongly shaped by contemporary environments, such as climate and local biotic and abiotic attributes, relatively little … ... A few shade-tolerant plants grow on the floor of the forest.
At high arctic latitudes, permafrost is common and there is little shortage of water during the short growing season, whereas alpine environments are less seasonal, with high light levels and daytime warming through much of the year. With increasing elevation, the effects of In arid regions such as the Horn of Africa, this can allow tree growth near the top of mid elevation mountains that emerge from treeless semi-desert plains. Polar mountains may be entirely without vegetation; at other high latitude sites, mountains may bear only sparse tundra-like scrub. ... other water-loving small trees may be found. Neither of the For example, birds on high mountains in New Guinea may breed throughout the year; however, because there is no seasonal flush of plant and insect growth creating a temporarily abundant source of food, they lay few eggs. At the same time, mountain ecosystems are sensitive to rapid global development.
Over the past 2 decades the number of papers mentioning “ecosystem services” (ESS) has risen exponentially. Mountain ecosystems are especially vulnerable to climate change due to (1) the very specific adaptations and narrow niches of species, which mean that even small environmental changes can cause a re-assemblage of species communities and (2) the limited and small extent of mountain ecosystems and the tendency towards fragmentation, coupled with physical barriers …
These include various willows, mountain alder, and water birch with dark-colored bark.
There are three main altitude belts for a mountain ecosystem. At even lower levels mountain lands … Vegetation types similar to those that succeed one another through more than 80° of latitude and 3 000 km distance – tropical moist forest, deciduous forest, coniferous forest, shrub and grassland, or ice – may be compressed onto the slopes of a mountain perhaps Despite superficial resemblance in vegetation, there are fundamental differences between elevational gradients in the tropics and latitudinal gradients. The Agricultural exploitation of mountain lands, therefore, is not very productive and generally is not intensive, being mainly confined to light or seasonal