Tundra Biome

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Tundra Biome
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• An excerpt from Three Junes by Julia Glass
• Maureen mentioned how a girl shed been
  friends with forever had gone off to a place
  called Quaqtaq The girl had since written
  Maureen to tell her what a shock it had been to
  arrive there. A name like that, some garbled
  croak of a place you cant even pronounce, what
  would you expect? Every whichway, she says, the
  land is whats called tundra. Maureen
  shivered for emphasis. Snow and blinking ice
  from September to May. All the creatures white.
  White bears, white rabbits, white foxes, white
  owls, white everything you could dream of. As if
  it was all scared bloodless. Half the year, your
  eyes just pine for green.

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• Characteristics The name tundra comes from
  the Finnish and means treeless land. It has
  long winters, and temperatures stay well below
  freezing most of the year. During winter, there
  is little no daylight, and summers are cold and
  short. In the summer, daylight may last 24 hours
  a day. Tundra has permafrost, which is ground
  that is permanently frozen a certain distance
  below the surface.
• Precipitation 25 cm or less
• Temperature Range -25 to 4 degrees C

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Plants of the Tundra

• There are very few species of plants, and they
  grow low to the ground. Plants include lichens,
  mosses, and cotton grass. Shrubs (bushes) and
  low trees are found in sheltered places.

cotton grass
lichen
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Because of the permafrost, the tundra tends to be
wet and boggy in the summer (the water cant sink
into the frozen ground.)
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A tundra biologist at work
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Animals of the Tundra
Animals either adapt to the hard winters or
migrate during the winters. Many animals use
camouflage and turn white in the winter. Animals
include musk oxen, caribou, lemmings, owls, many
seasonal migratory birds, and MANY insects,
particularly mosquitoes and black flies.

• wolf

snowy owl
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We were VERY lucky last month when two snowy owls
visited Connecticut. Heres a photo of one of
these rare birds in Norwalk.
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Taken by better photographers (Roy Zartarian and
Julia Carlson)
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• caribou

lemming
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caribou grazing
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pikas
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snowshoe hare
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arctic fox

• Many migratory birds live in the tundra in the
  short summers

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musk ox
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Musk ox are well adapted to the cold, snowy
winters
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Polar bears tend to stay on the ice, but can be
found on the tundra in winter
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What is the most plentiful animal on the tundra?
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• Ecological Threats The greatest threat to the
  tundra is global warming, which has the potential
  to melt the permafrost. This would change the
  entire characteristic of the biome.

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This shows a stream that had been on the surface.
With warming of the tundra, the ground defrosted
and the stream sank deep into the ground, eroding
the land around it. This picture shows the
erosion and mud from the defrosted ground.
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Polar bears hunt from pack ice. If the ice
breaks up too much, they will drown.
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Another ecological threat is oil exploration and
drilling. The tundra is a very fragile
ecosystem, and drilling or exploration for oil
can destroy the plants and defrost the
permafrost. Worse, oil spills can cause
permanent damage.
After an oil spill
Oil station, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska
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It is very difficult to clean up oil once it is
spilled.
Facilities and pipelines interfere in migration
and movement of animals
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This is an oil removal technique called oil sands
mining. The top layer of sand, just below the
surface, is mined away, leaving a moon-like
surface behind.
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Tundra Biome