Tundra-Taiga Biology [electronic resource].
Crawford, Robert M. M.
The Arctic Tundra and adjacent Boreal Forest or Taiga support the most cold-adapted flora and fauna on Earth. The evolutionary capacity of both plants and animals to adapt to these thermally limiting conditions has always attracted biological investigation and is a central theme of this book. How the polar biota will adapt to a warmer world is creating significant and renewed interest in this habitat. The Arctic has always been subject to climatic fluctuation and the polar biotahas successfully adapted to these changes throughout its evolutionary history. Whether or not climatic warming will a
Description based upon print version of record.
Cover; Tundra-Taiga Biology: Human, Plant, and Animal Survivalin the Arctic; Copyright; Preface; Acknowledgements; Contents; CHAPTER 1:Arctic climate history; 1.1 The concept of the Arctic; 1.1.1 Defi ning the Arctic; 1.2 Characteristics of polar climates; 1.2.1 Temperature regime variations; 1.2.2 Sea levels and oceanicity; 1.2.3 The polar night; 1.2.4 Climatic consequences of winter ice; 1.3 Polar climatic history; 1.3.1 Before the ice; 1.3.2 Ancient arctic forests; 1.3.3 Recently extinct arctic forests; 1.4 Cenozoic temperature changes; 1.4.1 Causes of climatic oscillations
1.4.2 The Azolla event1.5 Pleistocene climate changes; 1.5.1 The Croll-Milankovitch theory; 1.5.2 Oceans and climate change; 1.6 Conclusions; CHAPTER 2:The Holocene at high latitudes; 2.1 After the ice age; 2.1.1 The 8,200 BP event; 2.2 Glacial refugia; 2.2.1 Genetic evidence for glacial refugia; 2.3 Reconstructing past plantdistributions; 2.3.2 Early Holocene presence of plants at highlatitudes; 2.3.3 Vegetation history from pollen analysisand biome reconstruction; 2.3.4 DNA and vegetation history; 2.4 Pleistocene megafauna decline; 2.4.1 The Woolly Rhinoceros; 2.4.2 The last of the mammoths
2.4.3 DNA dating of mammoth survival2.5 Pleistocene megafauna survival; 2.5.1 Horses in the Arctic; 2.5.2 Muskoxen; 2.6 The Hypsithermal, or Xerothermic,or Climatic Optimum; 2.6.1 Post-Hypsithermal climatic cooling; 2.6.2 Permafrost persistence; 2.6.3 Ecological effects of permafrost; 2.7 Late Holocene climate fl uctuations; 2.7.1 The Medieval Warm Period; 2.7.2 The Little Ice Age; 2.7.3 Solar activity and climate; 2.7.4 Arctic climate at present; CHAPTER 3:Human arrival in the Arctic; 3.1 Prehistoric arctic peoples; 3.1.1 Human arrival in North America; 3.1.2 The Pleistocene overkill
3.2 Indigenous peoples of Arctic Eurasia3.2.1 Saami; 3.2.2 Palaeo-Siberians; 3.2.3 Samoyeds; 3.2.4 Yakuts; 3.2.5 Chukchi; 3.3 Indigenous peoples of Arctic America; 3.3.1 Inuit; 3.3.2 Nunamiut; 3.4 Adapting to unpredictableenvironments; 3.5 Eurasian Reindeer herding; 3.6 Norse settlements across the NorthAtlantic; 3.6.1 The Norse disappearance from Greenland; 3.7 Northern peoples in recent times; 3.7.1 The fur traders; 3.7.2 The 20th and 21st centuries; CHAPTER 4:Tundra diversity; 4.1 Defi ning the Tundra; 4.2 Tundra classifi cation; 4.2.1 Polar deserts; 4.2.2 Prostrate shrub Tundra
4.2.3 Erect/tall shrub Tundra4.2.4 Graminoid Tundras; 4.2.5 Azonal types of Tundra; 4.3 Arctic bryophytes; 4.3.1 Mosses as facilitators; 4.4 Sequestration and refi xationof soil carbon; 4.5 Disturbance and diversity; 4.5.1 Cryoturbation and patterned ground; 4.5.2 Pingos, earth mounds, and thufúr; 4.6 Tundra animal diversity; 4.6.1 Lemming population cycles; 4.6.2 Collapsing vole population cycles; 4.6.3 Reindeer populations; 4.6.4 Reindeer winter starvation; 4.6.5 Muskoxen; 4.7 Conclusions; CHAPTER 5:Taiga and bog; 5.1 Boreal forest diversity; 5.2 The Tundra-Taiga Interface
5.2.1 Krummholz and Krüppelholz
The Arctic Tundra and adjacent Boreal Forest or Taiga support the most cold-adapted flora and fauna on Earth. The evolutionary capacity of both plants and animals to adapt to these thermally limiting conditions has always attracted biological investigation and is a central theme of this book. How the polar biota will adapt to a warmer world is creating significant and renewed interest in this habitat. The Arctic has always been subject to climatic fluctuation and the polar biotahas successfully adapted to these changes throughout its evolutionary history. Whether or not climatic warming will a
Description based on print version record.
Human geography
Tundra ecology
Taiga ecology
Anthropology
Earth & Environmental Sciences
Social Sciences
Anthropogeography & Human Ecology
Ecology