Where do the treeless tundra areas of northern highlands fit in the global biome system: toward an ecologically natural subdivision of the tundra biome
According to some treatises, arctic and alpine sub‐biomes are ecologically similar, whereas others find them highly dissimilar. Most peculiarly, large areas of northern tundra highlands fall outside of the two recent subdivisions of the tundra biome. We seek an ecologically natural resolution to thi...
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Online Access: | http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4716497/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26811780 https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1837 |
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4716497 2023-05-15T14:56:36+02:00 Where do the treeless tundra areas of northern highlands fit in the global biome system: toward an ecologically natural subdivision of the tundra biome Virtanen, Risto Oksanen, Lauri Oksanen, Tarja Cohen, Juval Forbes, Bruce C. Johansen, Bernt Käyhkö, Jukka Olofsson, Johan Pulliainen, Jouni Tømmervik, Hans 2015-12-15 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4716497/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26811780 https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1837 en eng John Wiley and Sons Inc. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4716497/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26811780 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1837 © 2015 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. CC-BY Original Research Text 2015 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1837 2016-01-31T01:16:41Z According to some treatises, arctic and alpine sub‐biomes are ecologically similar, whereas others find them highly dissimilar. Most peculiarly, large areas of northern tundra highlands fall outside of the two recent subdivisions of the tundra biome. We seek an ecologically natural resolution to this long‐standing and far‐reaching problem. We studied broad‐scale patterns in climate and vegetation along the gradient from Siberian tundra via northernmost Fennoscandia to the alpine habitats of European middle‐latitude mountains, as well as explored those patterns within Fennoscandian tundra based on climate–vegetation patterns obtained from a fine‐scale vegetation map. Our analyses reveal that ecologically meaningful January–February snow and thermal conditions differ between different types of tundra. High precipitation and mild winter temperatures prevail on middle‐latitude mountains, low precipitation and usually cold winters prevail on high‐latitude tundra, and Scandinavian mountains show intermediate conditions. Similarly, heath‐like plant communities differ clearly between middle latitude mountains (alpine) and high‐latitude tundra vegetation, including its altitudinal extension on Scandinavian mountains. Conversely, high abundance of snowbeds and large differences in the composition of dwarf shrub heaths distinguish the Scandinavian mountain tundra from its counterparts in Russia and the north Fennoscandian inland. The European tundra areas fall into three ecologically rather homogeneous categories: the arctic tundra, the oroarctic tundra of northern heights and mountains, and the genuinely alpine tundra of middle‐latitude mountains. Attempts to divide the tundra into two sub‐biomes have resulted in major discrepancies and confusions, as the oroarctic areas are included in the arctic tundra in some biogeographic maps and in the alpine tundra in others. Our analyses based on climate and vegetation criteria thus seem to resolve the long‐standing biome delimitation problem, help in consistent characterization ... Text Arctic Fennoscandia Fennoscandian Tundra PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic Ecology and Evolution 6 1 143 158 |
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English |
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Original Research |
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Original Research Virtanen, Risto Oksanen, Lauri Oksanen, Tarja Cohen, Juval Forbes, Bruce C. Johansen, Bernt Käyhkö, Jukka Olofsson, Johan Pulliainen, Jouni Tømmervik, Hans Where do the treeless tundra areas of northern highlands fit in the global biome system: toward an ecologically natural subdivision of the tundra biome |
topic_facet |
Original Research |
description |
According to some treatises, arctic and alpine sub‐biomes are ecologically similar, whereas others find them highly dissimilar. Most peculiarly, large areas of northern tundra highlands fall outside of the two recent subdivisions of the tundra biome. We seek an ecologically natural resolution to this long‐standing and far‐reaching problem. We studied broad‐scale patterns in climate and vegetation along the gradient from Siberian tundra via northernmost Fennoscandia to the alpine habitats of European middle‐latitude mountains, as well as explored those patterns within Fennoscandian tundra based on climate–vegetation patterns obtained from a fine‐scale vegetation map. Our analyses reveal that ecologically meaningful January–February snow and thermal conditions differ between different types of tundra. High precipitation and mild winter temperatures prevail on middle‐latitude mountains, low precipitation and usually cold winters prevail on high‐latitude tundra, and Scandinavian mountains show intermediate conditions. Similarly, heath‐like plant communities differ clearly between middle latitude mountains (alpine) and high‐latitude tundra vegetation, including its altitudinal extension on Scandinavian mountains. Conversely, high abundance of snowbeds and large differences in the composition of dwarf shrub heaths distinguish the Scandinavian mountain tundra from its counterparts in Russia and the north Fennoscandian inland. The European tundra areas fall into three ecologically rather homogeneous categories: the arctic tundra, the oroarctic tundra of northern heights and mountains, and the genuinely alpine tundra of middle‐latitude mountains. Attempts to divide the tundra into two sub‐biomes have resulted in major discrepancies and confusions, as the oroarctic areas are included in the arctic tundra in some biogeographic maps and in the alpine tundra in others. Our analyses based on climate and vegetation criteria thus seem to resolve the long‐standing biome delimitation problem, help in consistent characterization ... |
format |
Text |
author |
Virtanen, Risto Oksanen, Lauri Oksanen, Tarja Cohen, Juval Forbes, Bruce C. Johansen, Bernt Käyhkö, Jukka Olofsson, Johan Pulliainen, Jouni Tømmervik, Hans |
author_facet |
Virtanen, Risto Oksanen, Lauri Oksanen, Tarja Cohen, Juval Forbes, Bruce C. Johansen, Bernt Käyhkö, Jukka Olofsson, Johan Pulliainen, Jouni Tømmervik, Hans |
author_sort |
Virtanen, Risto |
title |
Where do the treeless tundra areas of northern highlands fit in the global biome system: toward an ecologically natural subdivision of the tundra biome |
title_short |
Where do the treeless tundra areas of northern highlands fit in the global biome system: toward an ecologically natural subdivision of the tundra biome |
title_full |
Where do the treeless tundra areas of northern highlands fit in the global biome system: toward an ecologically natural subdivision of the tundra biome |
title_fullStr |
Where do the treeless tundra areas of northern highlands fit in the global biome system: toward an ecologically natural subdivision of the tundra biome |
title_full_unstemmed |
Where do the treeless tundra areas of northern highlands fit in the global biome system: toward an ecologically natural subdivision of the tundra biome |
title_sort |
where do the treeless tundra areas of northern highlands fit in the global biome system: toward an ecologically natural subdivision of the tundra biome |
publisher |
John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
publishDate |
2015 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4716497/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26811780 https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1837 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Fennoscandia Fennoscandian Tundra |
genre_facet |
Arctic Fennoscandia Fennoscandian Tundra |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4716497/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26811780 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1837 |
op_rights |
© 2015 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.1837 |
container_title |
Ecology and Evolution |
container_volume |
6 |
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1 |
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143 |
op_container_end_page |
158 |
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1766328687788032000 |