An ecosystem is made up of all the biotic and abiotic features in a specific area, the living correlating with the nonliving, and vice versa. Depending on where the ecosystem may be, organisms may have different relationships with the things amongst them. The tundra ecosystem is an example in this case. Because of its location in the Arctic Circle and its infamous living conditions, organisms use the abiotic and biotic features to their advantage. These kinds of interactions are key to what makes the ecosystem what it is.
The tundra ecosystem is a freezing and treeless ecosystem in the North. Temperatures range from 10 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit, and most of the land is barren with permafrost under the soil. Because of the lack of warm temperatures
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In the tundra, organisms experience all 3 of the types of symbiosis: mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. An example of mutualism, for example, is the lichen. Lichen is made up of algae and fungus. The algae goes through photosynthesis to make food for the fungus, and the fungus retains water and minerals to protect the algae. The two organisms benefit, making it mutualistic. Another symbiotic relationship is commensalism between traveling caribou and arctic foxes. When caribou dig up under the snow to try and find food, they open up a hole that may lead to a smaller creature’s home, like a small rat or lemming. The fox uses this as an advantage and digs the hole deeper once the caribou leave, thus making it easier for the fox to find its prey. The caribou remain unaffected by this, and the fox benefits by getting to its prey and easier way. On the other hand, parasitism occurs when one organism is harmed and the other benefits. The most common parasitism relationship in the tundra is when tapeworms crawl into the bodies of caribou, moose, and wolves. The tapeworms eat the food their host eats, which may cause health problems and malnutrition for the animal. The host is harmed, but the tapeworm
Purpose: The purpose of this lab is to investigate the various components of different ecosystems in a smaller representation and study the conditions required for the ecosystem’s sustainability as well as the connections between
The climate of the tundra is characterized by harsh winters. The average temperature in the tundra area is about –27 degrees. But what is even worse are the long night. At nights the lowest temperture recorded was –67.36 degrees. There are even times in the year when the sun doesn’t come up for days. In the tundra we have little snow and even less rainfall. The rainfall is about a quarter inch in a yearly rainfall. Even though the tundra’s winters are long a harsh there summers are the shortest season of all. Do to the terrible weather and climate in the tundra their animals and plant life is very limited.
The winter will last 8 to 10 months followed by the short and much less cold summer. During the summer some lower areas of the Tundra will defrost at which point most of the flora and fauna will start to creep out of hiding. The few summer months are used by many animals such as the polar bear, to mate and to prepare for the once again oncoming winter. During the winter months, most everything remains frozen. Many of the animals migrate south for the winter whereas some stay behind or even group together for ritual group suicide (lemmings).
Cold Environments as Fragile Environments Cold environments such as Western Antarctica (including peninsula) and Arctic tundra are extremely fragile, mainly due to the low temperatures severely limiting vegetation growth and thus any development will destroy the natural environment. Although this fragility of the environment has not deterred development despite the difficulty and cost of developing cold environments, this is due to human’s inability to look to the long-term effects of their actions. Arctic tundra is described as a fragile environment as plant growth of mosses and lichens is restrict to only 2mm per year due to low temperatures only allowing growth to occur in the 3 summer months where temperatures reach 10 degrees centigrade. If growth of predominantly mosses and lichens is so limited then anything that touches the vegetation may undo thousands of years of growth, this should in theory deter development as it destroys the natural landscape and habitats for animals. The fragility of Alaskan tundra has not stopped development at all, the extraction of oil has occurred since 1974.
Arctic tundra is located in the northern hemisphere, encircling the North Pole and extending south to the Coniferous forests of the Taiga. The arctic is known for its cold, desert-like conditions. The growing season ranges from 50 to 60 days. The average winter temperature is -34° C (-30° F), but the average summer temperature is 3-12° C (37-54° F), which enables this biome to sustain life. Rainfall may vary in different regions of the arctic. Yearly precipitation, including mel...
The arctic fox lives in aa habitat that can be very cold and to overcome the weather they have a number of behavioural adaptations. When the temperature drops very down they start to dig burrows under the snow. It is like a tunnel where they can isolate themselves and avoid the weather. This also protects them from the strong wind. The temperature inside the tunnel is higher that external
Tundras are mostly treeless regions in the arctic and on the mountain tops. In these areas it is extremely cold, windy, and hardly any rainfall. Most of the year it is covered in snow yet in the summer it gets just warm enough to have flowers burst out of the soil. There are two different types of tundras. One is the arctic tundra witch located in the northern hemisphere. Thats where they get the name arctic. It encircles the north pole and extends farther south around the coniferous forests of the taiga. The growing seasons of the arctic tundra is 50-60 days long at the average temperature of 55 degrees fahrenheit. In the winter there is an average temperature is around -34 degrees fahrenheit. A winter in the arctic tundra is at least 10 months to 11 months. The other type of tundra is alpine tundra. This is located high in the mountains all over the world. They have some things that are the same and some things that are different first off they both can't grow trees or its very hard to find trees/ to have trees grow there. They also have the same animals in both tundras you should be able to find mountain goats,
This article offers insight to the controversial topic of whether or not to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska. It’s main solution is to converse with environmentalists on the issue to determine if it is worth the risks and suitable for the environment.
Fish have more known species than any other vertebrate and their habitats range from the smallest freshwater streams to the deepest parts of the seafloor. They grow from a fraction of an inch to 50 feet and live anywhere from the arctic waters to the tropics. Fish skeletons can either be made of nothing but cartilage or nothing but bone. They can look very awkward or very majestic.
The tundra is known for its’ cold temperatures, but also its’ limited plant species. The growth of the vegetation is primarily low to the ground and the biomass of plants is concentrated in the roots. Here the plants reproduce more likely by division and building than by flower pollination. Some of that growthforms that you will find in the tundra include tussock, mats or cushion plants, rosettes, and dwarf shru...
Tundra: Tundra. Ice sheets: Polar Ice Sheets. 5). Biomes a. Biomes are essentially ecosystems but on a larger scale (since climates are only based off of two thing, temp and precipitation, and biomes are based off of vegetation, which there are more than a billion different types). They’re different from ecosystems because an ecosystem is based around the “organisms and their physical environment” as well as the interactions between the two.
All over the world there are animals dying from national disasters and plants are dying from animals. So the predator - prey relationships have a big deal on the population on plants and animals. But with the predator - prey relationships both animals have a connection together because that animals and the plants can be controlled with a keystone species. The one that controls how the population of all the factors is the keystone species because the keystone species is the animal that keep everything in check with the population of the plants and animals. But if the keystone species die and can it affect the ecosystem strongly and a trophic cascade would happen. So living and Nonliving factors have a big effect on the population of the and
They inhabit a snowy forest ecosystem (or also know as taiga). The taiga is known for it's below zero temperature and conifers. During the winter, there is very little food available to predators, and they depend mainly on one source of food. The lynx's main source of food during the winter is the hare. The relationship between preys and predators can
KNUT, K. (2014). Tundra-taiga biology: human, plant, and animal survival in the Arctic. Choice Reviews Online, 52(01). doi:10.5860/choice.52-0261
The branch of science that deals with how living things, including humans, are related to their surroundings is called ecology . The Earth supports some 5 million species of plants, animals, and microorganisms. These interact and influence their surroundings, forming a vast network of interrelated environmental systems called ecosystems. The arctic tundra is an ecosystem and so is a Brazilian rain forest. The islands of Hawaii are a relatively isolated ecosystem. If left undisturbed, natural environmental systems tend to achieve balance or stability among the various species of plants and animals. Complex ecosystems are able to compensate for changes caused by weather or intrusions from migrating animals and are therefore usually said to be more stable than simple ecosystems. A field of corn has only one dominant species, the corn plant, and is a very simple ecosystem. It is easily destroyed by drought, insects, disease, or overuse. A forest may remain relatively unchanged by weather that would destroy a nearby field of corn, because the forest is characterized by greater diversity of plants and animals. Its complexity gives it stability.