Arctic Tundra

Introduction Earth's northernmost continental landmasses and island archipelagos are home to the Arctic tundra biome, a 5.1 million km 2 region characterized by low-growing, treeless vegetation (CAVM Team 2003).

It grows in the Arctic tundra of far eastern Siberia and the mountains of northern Japan.

At the northern limits of their range, species such as Bombus polaris, B. alpinus, and the parasitic B. hyperboreus occupy Arctic tundra ecosystems that extend as far north as Greenland and Canada's Ellesmere Island.

The breeding range includes land regions from the Arctic tundra to the tropics.

Snowy owls nest in the Arctic tundra of the northernmost stretches of Alaska, Northern Canada, and the Euro-Siberian region.

Wolves live in forests, inland wetlands, shrublands, grasslands (including Arctic tundra), pastures, deserts, and rocky peaks on mountains.

There are three subspecies, all of which winter along temperate-zone sea-coasts and breed on the high-Arctic tundra.

Recently, beavers have been observed colonizing arctic tundra, likely as a result of climate-induced increases in riparian shrubs.

Rough-legged buzzard is a migratory raptor that breeds in the Arctic tundra and moves to temperate regions for the winter.

The European golden plover tends to breed in the Arctic tundra and other moorland areas, ranging as far west as Iceland, where they are called Heiðlóa, and as far east as central Siberia; the southernmost breed in Wales and Belarus, after a small breeding population on Dartmoor in southwest England became extinct in about 2010.

The snow bunting lives in very high latitudes in the Arctic tundra.

The Pacific golden plover breeds in Arctic tundra areas of Siberia and western Alaska.

5'N at Nordkapp, at the northern extreme of Chermsideøya on Nordaustlandet, it grows from sea level to approximately 300 m (980 ft) elevation, forming low mats or cushions on moist, gently sloping moss-rich tundra and mineral-rich water seepages.