Biomes

Puna

Desert and Tundra Biomes

Citation Formats

General Reference

Nature Atlas. "Puna." Accessed September 8, 2026. https://nature.interactiveatlas.org/biomes/puna.

APA Style

Nature Atlas. (n.d.). Puna. Retrieved September 8, 2026, from https://nature.interactiveatlas.org/biomes/puna

BibTeX

@misc{natureatlas-puna,
  author = {Nature Atlas},
  title = {Puna},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://nature.interactiveatlas.org/biomes/puna},
  note = {Accessed September 8, 2026}
}

The puna is a high-altitude grassland of the central Andes across Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, occupying the zone above the treeline near 3,200 to 3,500 meters and below the permanent snowline above 4,500 to 5,000 meters. It is generally drier than the paramo grasslands of the northern Andes and experiences extreme daily temperature swings, with vegetation dominated by cushion and mat-forming plants along with grasses and shrubs of the daisy family. The puna is divided into wet, central and dry sub-regions, each with its own precipitation pattern and plant community adapted to that moisture and elevation.

Facts

Climate

Annual Precipitation (mm)

400 1

Precipitation varies sharply between wet puna (400 to 2000mm annually) and dry puna (under 400mm, with an 8-month dry season); 400mm sits at the boundary between the two and is used as a representative figure across the whole puna ecoregion, not a single measured site.

Typical Low Temperature (C)

5 1

Wet puna average annual temperature is cited as 5 to 7C with night frosts March to October; dry puna as 8 to 11C. 5C is the low end of the wet-puna figure, used as the representative low across the whole puna ecoregion.

Typical High Temperature (C)

11 1

Dry puna average temperatures are cited as 8 to 11C, the warmer of the two puna sub-regions; 11C is used as the representative high across the whole puna ecoregion.

Cross-Tradition Connections