Its winters are long and cold. Summers are about 10C The average annual temperatures are -70F (-56C). Winds usually blow at about 56km/h to 97km/h. the wind is stronger at higher places. Many animals live on the biome though there is little vegetation. Wolves, wolverines, arctic foxes and polar bears are some examples of predators of the biome. The biome is located at 55 and 70 North. It is much colder than the Arctic. The condition is not right for a true tundra to form. Nights are so long they can last up to weeks. The ground is permanently frozen 10 inches to 3 feet (25 to 100 cm) down so that trees cannot grow there. The bare and sometimes rocky ground can only support low growing plants like mosses, lichen etc. In the winter it is cold and dark and in the summer when the snow and the top layer of permafrost melt, it is very soggy and the tundra is covered with marshes, lakes, bogs and streams that breed thousands of insects and attract many migrating birds.
The main seasons are winter and summer, Spring and fall are only short periods between winter and summer. The tundra is the world's coldest and driest biomes. The average annual temperature is -18F (-28C). Nights can last for weeks when the sun barely rises during some months in winter, the temperature can drop to -94F (-70C). During the summer the sun shines almost 24 hours a day, which is why the Arctic is also called the Land of Midnight Sun. Summer is usually warm. Temperatures can get up to 54F (12C), but it can get as cold as 37F (3C). Average sumer temperatures range from 37 to 60F (3 to 16C).
The Arctic tundra is also a windy place and winds can blow between 30 to 60 miles (48 to 97 kilometers) per hour.
The tundra is like a desert when it comes to precipitation. ONly about 6 - 10 inches of precipitation (mostly snow) fall each year. Below the soil is the tundra's permafrost, a permanently frozen layer of earth. During the short summers, the top layer of soil may thaw just long enough to let plants grow and reproduce, Since it cannot sink into the ground, water from melting permafrost and snow forms lakes and marshes each summer.
The tundra is one of Earth's three major carbon dioxide sinks. A carbon dioxide sink is a biomass which takes in more carbon dioxide than it releases. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. During the short summer periods, tundra's plants take in carbon dioxide, sunlight and water in the process of photosynthesis. Plants normally give off carbon dioxide after they die ans decompose. But because of the short, cool summer and freezing winter temperatures, plants can't decompose. Remains of plants thousands of years old have been found in the tundra permafrost. In this way the tundra traps the carbon dioxide and removes it from the atmosphere. Today global warming is melting the permafrost of the tundra and every year several feet of tundra are lost. As the tundra melts, the plant mass decomposes and returns carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
Source: http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/tundra.htm
Online group discussion
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/170JlnVtzLcUtXsQ-Lwc8VEhGwQx2sQy0twkmUJfWyfA/edit#slide=id.g1a5bbd24_0_0
Inter-relationships between organisms in the food web
I am a herbivore, Ursus vulpes. I feed on Dionaea maximus, the producer in our food web. Stella stella and albus terrorem feeds on me. There are 3 decomposers in our food web as we thought that since decomposition does not take place easily in the tundra, it would be better to have more decomposers. Here is a screenshot of our group's food web.
Force-fitting activity
I used my cat keychain. When I saw the cat, I thought of an arctic fox since the biome was a tundra. But I did not want to take all the adaptions of an arctic fox so I decided to use some of the polar bear's too, such as the layer of fats under the fur. I also added in features of other animals from the animal kingdom, such as how it can see well in the dark and has a keen sense of hearing. Despite the fact that both the polar bear and fox are carnivores, my animal is a herbivore.
Annotated photo guide
I do not have a photo guide as it was inconvenient for me to take pictures while painting. Instead, I used the sketch of my organism to annotate it. It is not a very precise picture so it will be better to refer to the photos below.
Photographs of my final organism
Reflections
I think this Biology PT was interesting. It made me further understand the characteristics of the tundra and how I can create an animal that has adaptions that can adapt to this biome. However, I feel that it is very time consuming as we still have to make a model and meet up to make a video presentation. It was not easy to pick a day where everyone in the group was free which made it very inconvenient.
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