Home Online exhibits The world's biomes. Tundra is the coldest of all the biomes. Tundra comes from the Finnish word tunturi , meaning treeless plain. It is noted for its frost-molded landscapes, extremely low temperatures, little precipitation, poor nutrients, and short growing seasons. Dead organic material functions as a nutrient pool.
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Desert and tundra are two types of biomes. Both the biomes experience less precipitation due to this they have a less diversity of flora and fauna as compared to other biomes like savanna, grasslands, chaparral etc. Let us see how they differ from each other! Tundra is a biome with the snow-covered land. It is one the coldest and fiercest biome on Earth.
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Scattered trees grow in some tundra regions. The ecotone or ecological boundary region between the tundra and the forest is known as the tree line or timberline. The tundra soil is rich in nitrogen and phosphorus. There are three regions and associated types of tundra: Arctic tundra, [2] alpine tundra , [2] and Antarctic tundra. Arctic tundra occurs in the far Northern Hemisphere , north of the taiga belt. The word "tundra" usually refers only to the areas where the subsoil is permafrost , or permanently frozen soil. Permafrost tundra includes vast areas of northern Russia and Canada. Arctic tundra contains areas of stark landscape and is frozen for much of the year. Instead, bare and sometimes rocky land can only support certain kinds of Arctic vegetation , low growing plants such as moss, heath Ericaceae varieties such as crowberry and black bearberry , and lichen. There are two main seasons, winter and summer, in the polar tundra areas.
Some features of this site are not compatible with your browser. Install Opera Mini to better experience this site. Almost no trees due to short growing season and permafrost; lichens, mosses, grasses, sedges, shrubs. Regions south of the ice caps of the Arctic and extending across North America, Europe, and Siberia high mountain tops. Tundra comes from the Finnish word tunturia, meaning "treeless plain"; it is the coldest of the biomes.
