page_title: Scandinavian montane birch forest and grasslands
section_title: Habitats
hierarchical_section_title: Scandinavian montane birch forest and grasslands / Habitats
caption_attribution_description: English: Sjurfjellet in front and Båtfjellet in back Norsk bokmål: Sjurfjellet i forkant og båtfjellet bak
context_page_description: The Scandinavian montane birch forests and grasslands is a Palearctic ecoregion of the Alpine tundra and boreal forest biomes, located in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. It is one of the terrestrial ecoregions determined and defined by the World Wildlife Fund.
context_section_description: Parts of the ecoregion are located in smaller mountain areas surrounded by lower elevation biomes, as is the case with coastal mountains in Norway.
  At the highest altitude is high alpine tundra with very modest vegetation and bare rock, skree, snowfields and glaciers. At lower altitude is low alpine tundra with continuous plant cover; dwarf birch and willows up to 1 m tall and grasslands, as well as numerous lakes and bogs. At still lower altitude is the adjacent montane birch zone with small (2–5 m) mountain downy birch (Betula pubescens) above the conifer tree line; some stunted spruce and pine, and many lakes and bogs. This part is regarded as part of the High boreal (sparse taiga) vegetation zone; birch forming the treeline is very rare outside Scandinavia (also in Iceland and the Kamtchatka peninsula).
  At still lower elevations the forests become closed-canopy (mid-boreal, south-boreal), denser and taller (8–20 m, exceptionally 30 m) with more species including mature Scots pine and aspen. Sometimes much of the lowland forest near the fjords of Western Norway is also included as Norway spruce is mostly absent here (both Norway spruce and Sitka spruce are commonly planted for economic reasons). In these temperate forests are also species such as Quercus robur, Fraxinus excelsior, Taxus baccata, holly and small-leaved linden in addition to pine, aspen and birch. There might thus be a very large span in environmental conditions within this ecoregion; from temperate forest near the fjords with a 6-month growing season to the highest mountains with glaciers and snowfields not melting until mid-summer.
caption: Winter is long and snowmelt is late at the treeline, Junkerdal, Norway.
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