WEEK 9-10

Question 1

What is Biodiversity?

Answer 1

• Biodiversity - the number of species in a certain area.
  
  • can also think about biodiversity in terms of the distribution of species, the genetic variation within populations, or the role that species play within the ecosystem.

Question 2

What is the Typical conditions in mountain environments?

Answer 2

Typical conditions in mountain environments: cold temps throughout the year, exposure to more intense solar radiation, and lower partial pressures of atmospheric gases like carbon dioxide and oxygen.

Question 3

What are factors that contribute to the biodiversity of Mountains?

Answer 3

• One of the most important factors supporting high species biodiversity is the corresponding diversity of habitats that result from the rapid change in elevation on mountain slopes.
  
  • Mountains contain compressed climatic zones or micro climates along vertical elevational gradients.
  • As a result, mountains provide access to many different habitats within a small geographical area.
  • The high diversity of habitats allows organisms with different environmental requirements to coexist, thereby increasing the variety of species found in mountains.
  • One of the first people to document these patterns of mountain diversity was the Prussian geographer and nationalist Alexander von Humbolt: Between 1799 and 1804 von Humbolt travelled extensively in Latin America, exploring and descriibing these regions (like Chimborazo) from a modern scientific perspective.
    
    • his quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the entire field of biogeography.
    • Von Humbolt’s 1807 essay on the geography of plants was based on the then-novel idea of studying the distribution of species along gradients of varying physical conditions.
    • These patterns were famously depicted in his cross-section of Chimborazo, a massive 6,310-metre strato volcano and the highest mountain in Ecuador.
    • This pictorial representation and detailed descriptions of the cross-section of Chimborazo was called a Ein Naturegemalde Der Anden, or “Picture of Nature in the Andes” → provided detailed information about the temperature, altitude, humidity and animals found at each elevation.
    • this novel and complex information provided the basis for comparison with other major peaks in the world. → it was now possible to describe corresponding climate zones across the continents.

Question 4

What is Speciation?

Answer 4

• The processes that create new species
• Speciation occurs when populations diverge genetically to a point where they are no longer able to interbreed.
  
  • For this to happen, populations need to be isolated from each other so that there is no movement of individuals from one place to another.
  • One way that this can happen is through geographic isolation, which is known as allopatric speciation - is common in mountains because these rugged landscapes impose topographic barriers that isolate small populations.
  • Eg. the ridges and valleys of the Andes in South America create physical barriers that both limit animal dispersal and cause local variation in rainfall.
    
    • This has resulted in physical isolation of animal populations and variation in habitat productivity.
    • Both factors have likely contributed to the evolution of high species diversity.
    • This diversity can be seen in the patterns of genetic and morphological variation in Peruvian populations of the Tyrian Metaltail, a hummingbird living in Montaden forest at elevations of 1700-3800 metres.
    • Recent studies have shown that geographic isolation, rather than variation in climatic conditions, could explain most of the genetic variants among several subspecies of this widespread hummingbird.
• The story is very similar for species of bell flowers living in North American mountains.
  
  • Climatic variability associated with quaternary glacial cycles and the rugged topography of these mountain landscapes provided many opportunities for speciation in this group of plants.
  • Factors contributing to the high diversity of bellflowers include the combined effects of climate oscillations, rugged alpine habitats and variable floral morphology.
• Recent studies have found the speciation of bellflowers over the past 1 million years was associated with geographic isolation between multiple mountain refugia in western North America.
• Refugia - places in the mountains that have maintained favourable conditions during periods of past environmental change, often associated with periods of glaciation.

Question 5

What are the different ways scientists can quantify biodiversity?

Answer 5

• Simplest: a count of the total number of species present, called species richness.
• • A 2nd index is called evenness, which measures how similar species are in their relative abundances.
    
    • Eg. if there are large differences in the abundance of species, then a community has low evenness.
    • If the abundance of all species is approximately the same, the community would have high evenness.
• • Species Diversity, which accounts for both species richness and evenness.
    
    • can provide some insights about how ecosystems function in mountain environments.
    • Of course, there are potentially millions of species living in mountains around the world, and counting all of these individual species would take a very long time.
• One increasingly popular way to assess biodiversity is known as DNA barcoding.
  
  • DNA barcoding is a technique for characterizing species using short DNA sequence.
  • DNA barcoding also provides a measure of genetic diversity within populations and communities.

Question 6

What is Sarah Damowitz’s description of DNA Barcoding?

Answer 6

• uses barcodes to study biodiversity.
• How they can be used to improve our understanding of biodiversity and change in mountain environments:
  
  • DNA barcode is a small portion of the total genome
  • It’s a small segment of DNA and it is sequenced to differentiate different species.
  • So this area can help us to quickly identify species and it can also help us to discover new species.
  • So the analogy with the barcode is such that if you think about going grocery shopping, eg, you can quiclly can, the cashier can quickly scan all the items that you’re buyiing.
  • With the diversity of life on this planet, the DNA barcode helps us very quickly identify the species that we’ve got in front of us.
  • this technology is especially useful in hyper-diverse groups like insects. → there are millions of species of insects on Earth, and without a rapid digital technique, it’s very difficult to study them.
  • But through this technique we can ask questions that were not previously possible before.
  • DNA barcodes can play an important role in helping us understand the biodiversity of mountain systems as well as environmental change.
  • One of the great benefits of the DNA barcoding approach is that all organisms have DNA. → so helps us to study whole groups of species at the same time.
    
    • we can study as we move up in elevation how does species composition change going from lower elevation to high elevation and we can do this across many species at the same time rather than 1 by 1.
  • Many studies historically focused on charismatic species, like large mammals, birds, eg, but through this technique we’re increasing able to compare different sites in terms of their instinct biodiversity.
  • We can also use the method to study reclamation efforts such as how has recolonization occurred after a mine has shut down, for example.

Question 7

What are endemic species?

Answer 7

• Many mountain regions contain a high proportion of unique species that do not occur anywhere else in the world.
  
  • We refer to these unique species as endemic species.
  • Eg. an endemic species found only in the Rocky Mountains is the Banff Springs Snail.
    
    • or Phycella johnsoni.
    • the Banff Spring Snail is a small, air-breathing freshwater snail in the family Cyidae.
    • The largest individual is about one centimetre long and they survive on a diet of algae, microbes, and detritus.
    • was first identified in 1926 in the nine sulphurous hot springs of Sulphur Mountain in Banff National Park in Alberta. → they have not been found anywhere else.
    • these snails are very unusual bc they are adapted to life in thermal springs where the water is very low in oxygen and very high in hydrogen sulfide.
    • since its discovery, its range has shrunk to just five out of the nine hot springs.

Question 8

What is the Banff Spring Snail?

Answer 8

An endemic species.
- Banff Spring Snail is a small globe-shaped snail with a short spire sticking out its side, and maximum size of about 1 cm.
- What’s special about the snails is the environment they live in: live in water that’s roughly 20 degrees warmer than all the rest of the water in the park, makes for some interesting adaptations in terms of the food they eat and their seasonal fluctuations.
- they’re omnivores → they eat a combination of bacteria that actually oxides sulphur and algae and dead plant matter.
- Predator to the Banff Spring Snail: some of the springs that these snails live in are quite small and they are susceptible to drying up and we lose the entire population when the pond dries up and that’s been happening at a higher frequency in recent years compared to the past.
- One of the other things that’s easier to manage for them is the historical use of this kind of landscape.
- in the past, there was actually bathing in a pool like this and in more recent years once they had acknowledged sort of the Banff Springs Snail and its status in our environment, they’ve actually closed these springs to bathing and keep visitors out of the water and on boardwalks like this so they can just look at if from a distance.
- In Canada the snails are legally protected → listed by Canada’s National Species at Risk Act and they’re listed as endangered which is the highest rank within that scale and that means that Parks Canada is legally mandated to first of all come up with a recovery strategy for the snails with a series of very specific actions as to things that we can do to stabilize and actually bring those populations back.
- they can be found year-round and are confined to the wetted perimeter of the warm spring.
- However, the populations do fluctuate seasonally.
- So in the wet periods of the year, in the spring, the populations go down.
- In some springs, it could be only dozens of snails
- In the dry period, in the late summer and fall and into the winter, the populations will explode even up to hundreds of snails.
- These springs are actually quite diverse areas in terms of byrophyte communities for example → there are 75 different mosses found in the thermal springs at the cave and basin, roughly a dozen of those are actually considered rare and there’s another dozen liverworts and three of those are considered rare.

Question 9

What are Hotspots of Biodiversity?

Answer 9

• Hotspots of Biodiversity - regions containing high concentration of endemic species that are also facing threats of rapid species loss.
• More than 35 biodiversity hotspots have been identified around the world.
  
  • Half of them are located in mountain regions.
• Although these hotspots represent just over 2% of the Earth’s land area, they’re also home to about half of the world’s endemic species.
• Identifying hotspots of diversity has become an important tool to help managers prioritize and focus their conservation efforts.
• Protecting hotspots of biodiversity and the abundance of endemic species they support offers one of the best opportunities to curb high rates of extinction.
• The Andes Region of South America is one of these hotspots of species diversity, and these natural alpine habitats are also among the most threatened areas of the world.
• Explanations for this concentration of endemic species include
  
  • past climate shifts
  • tectonic events
  • modern ecological interactions
    
    • historically, the uplands were isolated from the lowlands by the Andean uplifts which began 25 to 30 million years ago.
    • → this eventually created a complex mosaic of high mountains and deep valleys.
    • this ancient uplift and resulting isolation were important drivers for speciation, resulting in high concentrations of endemic birds, mammals, amphibians, and plants.
  • limited dispersal

Question 10

Where would you expect to find the highest biodiversity?

Answer 10

• There are several hypotheses that could explain these patterns of diversity in mountains:
  
  • the geographical area hypothesis
  • the productivity hypothesis

Question 11

What is the Geographical Area Hypothesis?

Answer 11

• According to the geographical area hypothesis, larger areas can support more species.
  
  • Therefore, decreasing species diversity at high latitudes and elevations may just be a consequence of inherently smaller areas of habitat availability.

Question 12

What is the Productivity Hypothesis?

Answer 12

• Productivity Hypothesis proposes that the amount of primary productivity, which forms the resource base of food webs, determines the number of species that can be supported in an area.
  
  • Therefore, the higher primary productivity, associated with higher temperatures in the tropics and lower elevations contributes to higher biodiversity.

Question 13

What are the factors that influence the distribution of species in mountain environments at various geographical scales?

Answer 13

• Habitat fragmentation, as a result of past environmental changes such as glaciation, can be particularly influential in determining patterns of mountain biodiversity.
• Prof Terry Calligan on Studying these Patterns
  
  • Mountains are extremely important in determining the distribution of many species on planet earth.
  • They all effect distribution in many ways.
  • At the small scale, you find distributions of plants according to their altitude, the species that cannot tolerate shade but can tolerate low temperatures tend to be at the tops of mountains.
    
    • Those that are the best adapted to cold conditions are found on the side of the mountain away from the Sun, so in the northern hemisphere, it’s on the north side of the mountains.
  • At the larger geographical scale, mountains that are connected that run north-south are important for allowing corridors of distribution of plants from the south to the north, following the ice movements after the last ice age and previous ice ages.
    
    • For the moment, after the little ice age and earlier cold periods, we have something called Nunataks.
    • These Nunataks are the tops of mountains that are sticking out of our ice sheets.
    • The most famous one is in southwest Greenland, a hundred km from any ice-free area, and there, there are plants growing.
      
      • As we see climate warming, those individual Nunataks, separated from neighbouring Nunataks are going to become connected as ridges, and then the species will move along.
      • At the moment, those isolated species are endemics very often bc they’ve been separated, isolated from other gene pools for a long time.
      • Of course, when they meet again, then we’ll have a new evolutionary trend, a new mix of species as the genes flow again.
      • At the moment, as the mountains are isolated and it depends where you are in the cold regions, they’re isolated because of maybe ice between them.
      • In other latitudes it may be just distance and forest or even tropical forest between them. → those mountains in those situations are reservoirs, they’re refugia, reservoirs of old species, endemic species and species that cannot tolerate or move across the barriers below the mountains.

Question 14

Why does Biodiversity Matter, and in Particular, Why is Species Diversity Important in Mountains?

Answer 14

• One argument for protecting biodiversity is simply the beauty of nature itself.
  
  • People derive great enjoyment from experiencing the diversity of life in mountains.
  • The variety of unique and charismatic species in mountains attracts tourists, and therefore can be economically important as well.
• Beyond its aesthetic value, maintaining biodiversity is critical for the functioning of mountain ecosystems.
  
  • Biodiversity acts as insurance, buffering ecosystems against losses of individual species in the face of environmental change.
  • Different species have different tolerances for environmental change, so higher species diversity generally increases the probability that mountain ecosystems can cope with an extreme environmental events such as winter rainfall or icing, increased fire frequency or a drought.
• The diversity of vegetation in mountains is also critical for slope stability.
  
  • The steep terrain of mountains increases the susceptibility of soils to erosion.
  • Soil erosion in mountain landscapes increases the risk of avalanches and landslides, that can increase sedimentation in streams, degrading the quality of water supplies.
  • While bare soils are highly prone to erosion, the roots of vegetation anchor soils to enhance their stability.

Question 15

What is the Diversity Stability Hypothesis?

Answer 15

• Is based on the observation that species vary in their morphology and physiology, and that in highly diverse systems there will be some species that can compensate for the loss of others after disturbance.
  
  • Thus, species-rich systems are more likely to be considered stable or less variable and subject to change.
  • Sites that only contain a few, rare species with one dominant species are less able to withstand environmental disturbances.

Question 16

What are Ecosystem Services?

Answer 16

• All these values associated with mountain biodiversity can be thought of as ecosystem services - defined in the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment as a way of quantifying the benefits people obtain from both natural and managed ecosystems.
  
  • Mountain ecosystems provide a vast array of goods and services to humanity, both for people living in the mountains and for people living far away from mountains.
  • so there is a lot of reasons to care about mountain biodiversity.

Question 17

What are some factors organisms have to deal with in living at high altitudes in mountain ecosystems?

Answer 17

• There is a reduction in partial pressures of oxygen, carbon dioxide and water vapour at higher elevations.
• As a consequence or reduced water vapour, the capacity of the air to absorb and retain heat diminishes, leading to lower temperatures.
• Additionally, the thinner atmosphere at higher elevations results in greater solar radiation and an increased fraction of ultraviolet radiation.
• Slope aspect and steepness, poor soil development, water drainage, wind, and the seasonally variable patterns of precipitation also create challenging conditions for species to cope with.

Question 18

What are biological adaptations and what is their significance for organisms living in the mountains?

Answer 18

Mountains are home to truly unique ecological communities, and although mountains environments may seem to be hostile and difficult places to live, most mountain dwelling organisms have evolved a wide variety of biological adaptations, or traits that enhance their ability to survive and reproduce in these high places.

Question 19

What are Conifer Trees?

Answer 19

• One of the most noticeable changes in the landscape as you trek up a mountain is the increasing prevalence of coniferous trees such as white spruce and white bark pine.
• Conifers are a types of plants that reproduces from seeds in cones and can be easily recognized by their needle-like leaves.
  
  • These needles allow coniferous trees to thrive in cold and dry conditions at high elevations.
  • The compactness and small surface area of needles compared to broader leaves helps reduce evaporative water loss.
  • The needles also have a waxy coating called a cuticle that helps retain moisture and provides protection from ultraviolet radiation.
• • Plants need to retain water in mountain environments bc thin soils have a poor capacity to retain moisture.
    
    • However, many conifers also have extensive root systems that increases their capacity to obtain water and nutrients from the soil.

Question 20

How are needles an adaptation for conifer trees?

Answer 20

• The compactness and small surface area of needles compared to broader leaves helps reduce evaporative water loss.
• The needles also have a waxy coating called a cuticle that helps retain moisture and provides protection from ultraviolet radiation.
• Needles are the sites where photosynthesis takes place.
  
  • Photosynthesis is the process by which plants us light energy to convert carbon dioxide and water into sugar and oxygen.
    
    • CO2 + Water + Light→ Sugar + Oxygen
    • these sugars are, in turn, converted into biomolecules that form plant biomass, the leaves, stems, roots and reproductive structures.
• Conifers can photosynthesize at relatively high rates, even at low temperatures, compensating for the smaller surface area of needles.
  
  • This makes them very well suited to cold environments.
• Conifers are also evergreens, meaning that they retain their leaves throughout the years.
  
  • As a result, evergreens are able to photosynthesize longer into the fall after deciduous trees have already lost their leaves and then start again earlier in the spring as soon as temperatures rise above freezing.
  • This allows evergreens to take full advantage of the short growing season at high elevations.
• The small surface area of needles also means that evergreens do not accumulate snow that might otherwise weigh down and damage the trees.
  
  • The cone shape of evergreens and the flexibility of their branches allows them to shed snow as it accumulates.
  • The wood of conifers is also adapted for cold conditions at high elevations.
    
    • The tissue that forms wood in the trunks on the trees contains vessels that transport water and nutrients upwards from the roots.
    • During winter, water freezes in the vessels and gas bubbles can form, similar to the gas bubbles that form in ice cubes.
      
      • These gas bubbles can be problematic for trees because they block the transport of water.
    • To deal with this issue, conifers have narrower transport vessels called tracheids, which decreases **the likelihood that gas bubbles will develop.

Question 21

What are the similarities of White Bark Pine and Limber Pine?

Answer 21

• → both grow at the highest tree line elevations in the Rocky Mountains
• Their canopies provide shade for winter snow and can prolong the timing of snowmelt, therefore regulating downstream flows.
• Individual tress do not reach full cone production until they are 60 to 100 years old, and even some 1,000 year old trees have been known to reproduce.

Question 22

What are White Bark Pine?

Answer 22

• Conifer trees w/specific adaptations for life on alpine environments
• Fire has historically played an integral role in providing suitable regeneration habitat.
• White bark pine is more resistant to low-severity ground fires than other competing species, such as Seville pine fir and Engelmann Spruce.
• The open areas produced by these fires attract seed-dispersing species, such as Clark’s Nutcracker.
• This active movement of whitebark pine seeds into burned areas gives them a competitive advantage over other species, with wind dispersed seeds in the mountains.
• Whitebark Pine is in the upper alpine region, which is a very harsh, windy, dry area.
• Whitebark Pine is considered a keystone species:
  
  • it primarily regulates snow melt in its region, where it’s in thick canopies, it’s a bigger, bushier tree in that area and prevents the sunlight from melting the snow over, it blays that melt into the summer.
  • so they are a very important part of the hydrological cycle.
  • the burning is typical for their environment and necessary for their regeneration.
  • the seedlings of a whitebark pine can’t stand a shaded environment to grow up in → they need that open stand.
  • How their seeds disperse is a unique factor of them
    
    • whitebark pine, in particular, their cones don’t open on their own. → they don’t open through fire like some other species of pine. They require the nutcracker to come in and pry open that cone and take that seed and cache that seed in those openings created by fire or avalanche or other disturbances.
  • Whitebark pine is a species at risk, with 3-4 main threats:
    
    1. the change in the fire regime over time in this system.
       
       • so the Park’s past fire management practices is to every fire we must put it out. → they’re changing practices on that → introducing fire back into the landscape and that will help in letting fire, that natural process do its thing on the landscapes.
    2. Climate change
       
       • the whole changing regime of snowpack and snowmelt and that type of thing is having a long-term impact.
    3. An introduced pathogen called the white pine blister rest.
       
       • is a fungus that infects the trees through its needles into the stem, into the main trunk.

Question 23

What are the threats to White Park Pine?

Answer 23

• Whitebark pine is a species at risk, with 3-4 main threats:
  
  1. the change in the fire regime over time in this system.
     
     • so the Park’s past fire management practices is to every fire we must put it out. → they’re changing practices on that → introducing fire back into the landscape and that will help in letting fire, that natural process do its thing on the landscapes.
  2. Climate change
     
     • the whole changing regime of snowpack and snowmelt and that type of thing is having a long-term impact.
  3. An introduced pathogen called the white pine blister rest.
     
     • is a fungus that infects the trees through its needles into the stem, into the main trunk.

Question 24

What is Limber Pine?

Answer 24

• Characteristics:
• Limber Pine is in the same area as White Bark Pine (upper alpine region, which is a very harsh, windy and dry area) BUT it does migrate down into the montane region as well.
• is it a five needle pine? → should be five needles at each of the fascicles.
• has pollen cones
• has first year growth female cones where the seeds are going to be produced.
  
  • it will take a year before the female cones will grow into a bigger cone and around pine-cone size is about the stage where we want to start protecting it from predators if we were interested in protecting the seed and then we come back in September, October and collect that seed.
• limber pine’s cones will open up on its own and the seeds will just fall out.
• a single, mature cone will produce maybe about 40 to 60 seeds in a cone.

Question 25

What restoration efforts can we do for White Bark Pine (or Limber Pine)?

Answer 25

• Restoration and Conservation Efforts:
  
  • important for Whitebark Pine
  • what they do is find a stand of whitebark pine or limber pine - and usually our stands have a high infection rate of the blister rust - and we look in that stand and we find that one or two individuals in there that seem to have no rust infection at all or a very minor infection → so it’s showing a natural resistance to that rust.
    
    • So they target those trees, called plus trees, and monitor and protect them over time and collect seeds from those particular trees.
    • The seeds they collect, they send out to Glacier National Park in Montana and they grow out those seeds into seedlings and then we take those seedlings and plant them back into the burn site that we showed before.
  • They also take some portion of those seeds and send them out to partners at the US Forest Service in Idaho, Oregon and BC Forest Service.
    
    • they each have trials set up to understand if those trees actually have genetic resistance to that rust. → take 5 or 7 years to figure out.
  • To be cone-bearing, these seedlings would take 60 years probably, 80 years before the first cones are produced and at least about a hundred years before they produce cones on a regular basis.
  • At each burn site they plan about 1000 trees in order to have some of them survive over that 60 or 80 year period.

Question 26

What are some other conifer species?

Answer 26

• A few high elevation conifer species like Larch or Tamarack are not evergreens and shed their needles in the fall.
  
  • This strategy may seem counterintuitive when compared to other conifer species, but it’s proven highly successful in mountain ecosystems.
• Larches
  
  • develop softer, more fragile needles that are a less costly investment than the hardy needles of evergreens.
  • They flower very early in the spring and photosynthesize more efficiently than evergreens.
  • Have a broad canopy relative to the cone-shaped evergreens, which allows them to capture more solar radiation.
  • They are also highly efficient in extracting nutrients from their needles back into their wood tissue before dropping needles in the fall.
    
    • By efficiently extracting nutrients, larches have adapted to withstand the nutrient-poor soils that are characteristic of mountain environments.
• One additional benefit of this life history that you can enjoy each year is when larch forests turn a stunning yellow and gold in September, just before the arrival of the first snowfall

Question 27

What do Alpine Plant communities consist of?

Answer 27

• Alpine plant communities consist of a variety of low-statured plants, including wildflowers, grasses, heaths, mosses and succulents.
• Alpine plants must have developed some unique traits that help them survive the cold.

Question 28

Alpine Plants Stay Warm Using What Two Pathways?

Answer 28

1. They either increase the amount of heat that they absorb from the sun called radiative heat gain.
   
   • Dark colouring, which absorbs more heat than lighter pigments is one way alpine plants have increased radiative heat gains.
   • Some plants also orient their surfaces so they’re perpendicular to the Sun to receive the greatest amount of heating.
2. Or they decrease the amount of heat that’s lost from wind, called convective cooling.
   
   • To reduce convective cooling, plants may find refuge from the wind by growing in sheltered microclimates.
     
     • For example, plants that grow close to a boulder that blocks the wind or provides shade from intense sun may be more likely to survive and reproduce.
     • Many alpine plants also have a dense, hairy surface called pubescence.
       
       • These hairs trap a thin layer of air above the surface of the plant, called a boundary layer.
       • By reducing air movement over leaves, boundary layers reduce convective heat loss and stabilize the microclimate against temperature fluctuations.
       • Growing close to the ground provides protection from harsh winds and is a strategy employed by many alpine plants.
       • A compact growth form also increases the likelihood that the plants will be entirely covered by snow during the winter.
   • Intuitively, it may seem that snow accumulation would crush alpine plants and detrimentally affect their survival.
   • Instead, snow provides a protective blanket that insulates plants against fluctuating temperatures, shields them from high winds and radiation and provides a source of moisture.
     
     • This subnivian space below the snow is critical for many alpine species.

Question 29

What is a Subnivian space?

Answer 29

Area below the snow that is critical for many alpine species, including plants.
- snow provides a protective blanket that insulates plants against fluctuating temperatures, shields them from high winds and radiation and provides a source of moisture.
- This subnivian space below the snow is critical for many alpine species.

Question 30

What is a Cushion Growth Form?

Answer 30

• A Cushion Growth Form is one strategy that has been highly successful in alpine environments.
  
  • Cushions are tightly packed clusters of many smaller stems.
  • The cushion growth form is a highly efficient way to stay warm as it both increases radiative heat and restricts air movements through the low canopy.
  • These adaptations allow cushions to create favourable microclimates. → Temperatures can be up to 15 degrees Celsius warmer than the surrounding air temperature.
  • The warm microclimate is not only beneficial for the cushions species but for other species that take advantage of the shelter provided by the cushion.
    
    • including other plants, microorganisms, spiders and insects.
  • Dead plant mater within a cushion also promotes nutrients recycling and encourages further plant growth.
    
    • In this sense, cushions can be thought of as ecosystem engineers, organisms that modulate the availability of resources to other species through habitat modification.
  • The dead leaves that are retained on the stem act as insulators, buffering against temperature fluctuations.
• Although growth form reduces exposure to drying winds, the erect flowering stems of the Rosette Growth Form are obviously more exposed but this is also an adaptation for seed dispersal and attracting pollinators.
• There are many other variations on these growth strategies that plants have evolved to cope with extreme alpine conditions.

Question 31

What is Espeletia Schultzii?

Answer 31

• A giant rosette species common above the treeline in the Venzuelan Andes.
• The trunk is thick, with succulent hairy leaves arranged in a dense spiral pattern.
• Marcescent Leaves that senesce that do not fall of the plant provide protection from the cold.
• Paradoxically, individuals of this plant increase in stem height with increasing elevation.
  
  • This is partly explained by the longevity of this plant at high elevations.

Question 32

What are the Physiological Adaptations of Alpine Plants to Prevent its Tissues from Freezing?

Answer 32

• When water freezes it expands and plant cells can be damaged or even burst. So beyond their morphological, structural, or even phenological adaptations, alpine plants have developed three physiological functional adaptations to help prevent their tissues from freezing.
  1. A process called freezing point depression allows plants to increase the concentration of soluble sugars in their tissues in order to reduce the temperature at which they will freeze.
  
  • similar to the concept that’s applied when roads are salted in the winter to prevent ice from forming.
    
    2. Water inside the plants can cool below its freezing point of zero degrees Celsius in a process called Supercooling.
  • Normally ice forms around a seed crystal or a nucleus.
  • However, plants can achieve supercooling by segregating water into cells in the absence of other particles and prevent ice formation.
    
    3. Plants can move water to the otherwise empty spaces outside of their cells, where it will not damage the tissue if it freezes (dehydration by ice segregation)
  • This approach dehydrates the plant, but fortunately they’re adapted to cope with dry conditions.

Question 33

What are the Physiological Adaptations of Plants to Stop Water Loss at High Elevations?

Answer 33

• Plants lose water through a process called transpiration, which involves both water transport within a plant and the loss of water from the plant to the atmosphere through evaporation.
  
  • Pumping water upwards from the roots to leaves functions to distribute essential nutrients within the plant, while evaporation is an inevitable consequence of opening the leaves to the atmosphere to take in carbon dioxide required for photosynthesis
  • Carbon dioxide diffuses into leaves as water diffuses out, primarily through specialized pores called stomata.
  • The transpiration process is driven by the water-potential gradient.
    
    • Higher moisture within the leaf relative to the surrounding air causes net movement of water out of the leaf.
    • However, boundary layers can lessen the water potential gradient between the inside and the outside of the plant, which reduces transpiration.
    • Transpiration increases at high elevation, making it challenging for plants to retain moisture.
    • Lower atmospheric pressure means that less water is held in the surrounding air. This increases the water-potential gradient, resulting in more rapid diffusion of water out of the plants.
  • High winds in alpine environments remove the protective boundary layer around the plants and can increase water stress, even when water doesn’t appear to be limiting.
  • Hairy, fuzzy and succulent leaves can reduce transpiration rates which helps plants cope with dry and windy conditions.
• Like the needles on coniferous trees, alpine plant leaves tend to have cuticles that seal in moisture.
• Alpine plants tend to have greater control of their stomatal apertures than do plants in less extreme environments, and they may be able to reduce water loss by closing their stomata.
  
  • However, closing their stomata to conserve water comes at the cost of reduced photosynthesis because it also prevents the diffusion of carbon dioxide into the plant.
  • However, most alpine plants are able to maintain efficient photosynthesis at low temperatures and have other adaptations to sustain high growth rates during the summer.

Question 34

Many Alpine Plants have what kind of roots?

Answer 34

Deep-root systems.
- Taproot Systems have a large main root with smaller roots branching off the side.
- Deep root systems are an adaptation to the thin soils at high elevation.
- This feature helps stabilize the plants in places where soil is constantly on the move.
- Taproots allow plants to exploit deeper soil moisture and reach more nutrients.
- They also provide anchoring in mountain regions, which prevents them from being uprooted in highly unstable soils by harsh winds and other mechanical disturbances.
- Allocating resources into root systems and other below-ground storage structures is another adaptation for coping with variable conditions and short growing seasons.
- A high root-to-shoot ratio enables storage of water and nutrients, which is beneficial because having stored water and nutrients allows plants to grow immediately as temperatures increase in the spring.
- Examples of deeply rooted alpine species include:
- Pasqueflowers
- Gentians,
- Oxytropes

Question 35

What are Lichens?

Answer 35

• Lichens are desiccation tolerant non-flowering organisms with truly remarkable adaptations to arid, low-nutrient environments.
• They thrive in extreme alpine places, where they may be found on nearly all rock surfaces.
• They are technically not plants.
• They are a partnership, or symbiosis, between an algal or bacterial species and a fungus.
  
  • Organisms that could not otherwise survive alone in the alpine region.
  • The algae or bacteria photosynthesizes to produce food energy that it shares with the fungus; while the fungus provides shelter and a site on which the algae or bacteria can grow.
  • This type of relationship that’s beneficial to both organisms is called a mutualistic association.
• Lichens do not have a root system at all.
  
  • Instead, they collect nutrients and water from the atmosphere.
  • Lichens also obtain soluble nutrients from the surface they live on by releasing unique biochemical enzymes that decompose their substrate even if it’s a rock.
  • Lichens are able to capture nutrients in unique ways which help them thrive in alpine environments.
• While lichens lack adaptations like cuticles that prevent alpine plants from drying out, they tolerate severe desiccation or dehydration and enter dormancy until wetter conditions return.
  
  • When moisture does return, brittle lichens rapidly absorb water to become soft and fleshy.
  • The fungal layers of lichens can soak up more water than their own weight.
• Lichens are also well-adapted to cold environments because they can photosynthesize at any temperature above zero degrees Celsius.

Question 36

How long do alpine plants survive for?

Answer 36

• Most alpine plants survive for multiple years.
  
  • Eg. Cushions can live for hundreds of years.
• Perennials, plants that persist for more than 2 years are better adapted to alpine environments than annuals, which complete their entire life cycle in one year and then die.

Question 37

In extreme environments with short growing seasons, unfavourable conditions that diminish the likelihood of successful reproduction are pretty common. What happens to annuals and perennials in this situation?

Answer 37

• If annuals fail to reproduce, they could be lost entirely from a region.
• In contrast, perennials can persist through tough years and reproduce when conditions are more favourable.

Question 38

How do Alpine Plants Reproduce?

Answer 38

• Alpine plants often reproduce asexually too.
  
  • Sexual reproduction is challenging in alpine environments because of the density and diversity of pollinators is low and the viability of seeds is strongly influenced by environmental conditions.
• A more reliable strategy to cope with this variation is vegetative reproduction, a process by which new plants grow from parts of parent plants.
  
  • In alpine plants, asexual reproduction is commonly achieved using rhizomes, which are underground stems that extend away form the plant and grow in shoots.
  • The advantage of this strategy is that a plant can survive and reproduce even if harsh conditions prevent sexual reproduction.
• Alpine plants that produce sexually tend to rely on insect pollination and have developed specialized traits to attract these pollinators.
  
  • Despite being low lying and small, alpine plants are known for their spectacular floral displays.
  • Their disproportionately large and strongly scented flowers function to attract pollinators that are relatively rarer in cold alpine regions.
  • Clusters of flowers on cushion-forming plants also attract a greater number of pollinators than they would have if they grew more separately.
• Bc of the short growing season at high elevations, most alpine flowering plants bloom within a few weeks following snowmelt.
  
  • This allows them more time to attract pollinators, but pollinator activity is reduced early in the season due to cold conditions.
  • As a result, plants have adaptations that create warm microclimates around their flowers.
  • Eg. darker flowers trap more heat than lighter-coloured flowers.

Question 39

Many alpine plants have what-shaped flowers?

Answer 39

• Many alpine plants also have flowers that are cup-shaped which focuses solar radiation towards the centre of the flow, increasing the temperature inside of the flow relative to the surrounding air.
• Flowers of mountain avens, or dryas octopatala, are heliotropic, following the sun as it moves across the sky.
  
  • The petals reflect sunlight onto the pistols inside the flower, warming them by up to 7 degrees Celsius compared to the surrounding air temperature.
  • Insects sometimes seek refuge in the warmth of the flowers, which increases opportunities for pollination.
  • This warming also maintains stable temperature in flowers, which can accelerate development of the sexually reproductive organs in flowers and facilitate fertilization and seed development.
  • Eg. solar tracking enhances pollen germination by up to 44% in the Snow Buttercup, Renunculus adonius, a common alpine species in the central Rocky Mountains.
• Different flower shapes and colours are also important for attracting specific types of pollinators.
  
  • Flowers and pollinators form a mutualistic association: plants benefit pollinators by proving nectar as food, and in turn, pollinators transfer pollen between plants to facilitate their reproduction.

Question 40

Alpine plants also can have what type of relationship with pollinators?

Answer 40

• Specific species of plants and pollinators often have exclusive relationships due to specialized adaptations that have evolved through a process called Co-evolution, in which two or more species reciprocally affect each other’s evolution.
  
  • Trait specialization benefits pollinators by reducing competition for nectar and benefits plants by increasing the chances that pollinators will visit other plants of the same species to successfully pollinate them.
• On the other hand, opting for a generalist strategy may be less risky in mountain environments where the possibility of one specialist species failing in a given year may be quite high.
  
  • Therefore, some plants have traits that make them more generally attractive to a wide range or pollinators.

Question 41

What are the most important pollinators in mountain ecosystems?

Answer 41

Bumblebees and Flies

• Bumblebees and flies employ very different pollination strategies.
  
  • Bumblebees are specialist pollinators that preferentially visit plants with adaptations that match their morphology.
  • Flies are generalist pollinators that visit a wider variety of unspecialized plants.

Question 42

What does Jessamyn Manson Say on the Strategies of Pollinators?

Answer 42

• Bee pollinators perceive blue, green, violet and yellow and prefer to visit flowers that are brightly coloured, particularly blue and yellow flowers.
  
  • These flowers often have nectar guides, lines and patterns that can only be seen under ultraviolet light, which direct bees towards the nectar and pollen in flowers.
• Bird pollinators, like hummingbirds, also have excellent colour vision, but they can’t see in the ultraviolet range.
  
  • However, unlike bees, birds can see the colour red, and they have a preference for bright red flowers.
• In contrast, flies have limited colour vision and are attracted to white flowers.
  
  • Because fly pollinators do a poor job of distinguishing between colours, there is no advantage for fly pollinated flowers to invest in their limited resources in producing colourful floral displays.
• Moths are nocturnal pollinators and moth pollinated flowers are therefore almost exclusively white.
  
  • However, moths usually find their flowers using scent.
• Flower scent is also important for bees and flies, although they have very different preferences.
  
  • While bees are attracted to sweet-smelling flowers, flies prefer flowers that smell like rotting meat.
• Birds have a very poor sense of smell, and bird pollinated flowers tend to be scentless.
• To form an exclusive relationship with a certain type of pollinator, flowers have adaptations that make their nectar or pollen inaccessible to other pollinators.
  
  • eg. the nectar of some bee-pollinated flowers is often located at the bottom of a long tube.
  • The high dexterity of bees allows them to manipulate flower parts to access the nectar, while their long tongues allow them to extract that nectar.
• In contrast, the nectar of generalist flowers is easier to access because it needs to be available to a wide variety of pollinators.
  
  • Therefore, there is no advantage to having a long tongue if you’re a generalist pollinator.
• It’s beneficial for flowers to provide large amount of nectar to bees to increase their chances of being pollinated.
  
  • Bc of the low temperatures, larger body bees, such as bumblees are more common in the alpine.

Question 43

How should you pick shelters/tents for camping?

Answer 43

• Tents nowadays are super light, strong and versatile.
• if you’’re going to more exposed locations consider a stronger tent with more pole intersections and a full coverage flysheet and vestibule.
• More mesh gives better breathability but is colder as temperatures dip down.
• Pick a tent that gives you the ability to comfortably fit your entire group and gear.
• Proper and thorough staking of your tent is absolutely critical to weathering unexpected storms comfortably, so take the time to do a really good job with your stakes.
  
  • Pick a flat spot that has good drainage and ensure you’re not crushing fragile foliage when you set up.
  • A half full see-through water bottle can be used as a giant bubble level to help with sight selection.

Question 44

How should you pick a sleeping bag for camping?

Answer 44

• When you pick a sleeping bag, consider the temperature rating as a guide only.
  
  • Your hydration, how tired you are, elevation, and how much you’ve been eating all contribute to how warm you sleep.
  • You can layer up in your bag just like you do for normal travel if necessary.
  • However, wearing fewer layers allows the sleeping bag itself to keep you warm and do its job.
  • Pick a bag that is as close fitting as you can handle to help minimize extra bulk and weight and maximize efficiency.
  • High fill-ratio down is the most efficient option but requires care and attention to keep it dry, while synthetic still insulates while they’re still damp.
• Consider creating a system of sleeping bags.
  
  • People often carry a short inflatable pad for better insulation and comfort and it can be joined with a long, thin closed cell foam pad as well as a portable seat around camp.
    
    • also the closed cell foam makes great blister pads and can be really helpful when you need splint and injury.
  • The third part of the insulating system, why not put your empty backpack under your feet?

Question 45

How should you select a backpack for camping?

Answer 45

• Need a backpack that can carry all your gear.
  
  • try to get one that fits everything inside since having extra stuff swinging around on the outside makes for an unbalanced, uncomfortable carry.
• Put heavier items low and close so they ride in or near the small of your back.
  
  • Take the time to try on lots of packs so as to get the best possible fit.
  • You need it to carry your whole house and household.

Question 46

How biodiverse are mountains?

Answer 46

• Mountains support approximately 1/4 of terrestrial biological diversity.
• 1/2 the world’s biodiversity hotspots are concentrated in mountains.
• Mountains are rich in endemic species ie. plants and animals that occur nowhere else.
• About 12% of the terrestrial land area is mountains; the alpine belt, the treeless life zone of mountains covers ca. 3% of the global land area.
  
  • Around 10,000 alpine species are confined to this alpine life zone and comprise about 4% of the global flowering plant species.
  • A conservative estimate of the world’s mountain plant species is 50,000 species of flowering plants (out of a total of ca. 260,000)
• On average, a single mountain system such as the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Scandes, the Colorado Rockies, or the New Zealand Alps hosts a few hundred (often 500-600) different species in the alpine belt zone.
  
  • There are no such estimates available for animals, invertebrates (eg. insects) in particular, but a common estimate for temperate to cool climates is a 10-fold higher animal than plant species diversity.

Question 47

Why are Mountain Biota So Diverse?

Answer 47

• The compression of climatic zones over short distances.
  
  • Different climatic conditions that stretch over thousands of km in the lowlands may be located on a single mountain slope.
  • Creates an assembly of contrasting biota on mountains.
• The great diversity of habitats resulting from topographic diversity driven by the forces of gravity.
  
  • Mountain biodiversity mirrors topographic diversity.
  • Exposure and inclination of slopes and relief lead to a multitude of microclimatic situations which, in combination with substrate types and associated water and nutrient regimes, create a great variety of micro-habitats, each with characteristic organisms.
• Habitat isolation and fragmentation, leading to local or regional diversification.
  
  • Mountains have been compared to archipelagos, surrounded by an “ocean” of lowland life conditions which are hostile for most mountain species.
• Mountains often offer migratory corridors, such as the east-west connection along the southern-slopes of the Himalayas.
• Moderate disturbances such as landslides, avalanches, grazing by large herbivores and/or wildfires tend to further increase habitat differentiation and diversity.
• At the community level, high altitude vegetation above tree line is diverse on small scales simply because of the small size of species.
  
  • One can find half of the plant species of a large area on a few square metres of dense ground cover.

Question 48

What are Patterns of Global Mountain Biodiversity?

Answer 48

• Major centres of plant species diversity are in tropical and subtropical mountains: Costa Rica and Panama, tropical eastern Andes, subtropical Andes, the Atlantic forests in Brazil, the eastern Himalaya-Yunnan region, northern Borneo, New Guinea, and East Africa.
• The mountains of the tropical and subtropical America harbour a huge diversity of plants:
  
  • Epiphytes, such as mosses and ferns, are an important component of this richness: Total moss diversity in the five tropical Andean mountain countries is estimated to be over 7x higher than for the entire Amazon basin.
• Secondary centres of biodiversity are found in the Mediterranean mountains, the Alps, the Caucasus, and Southeast Asia.
• Mountains are also important centres of agro-biodiversity with a great variety of locally adapted crops and livestock, an important genetic resource and an asset for assuring food security for a growing global population.
• Among mountain forests, cloud forests are hot spots of diversity, not necessarily in absolute number of species, but in numbers of very rare and endangered species (eg. in Peru, 30% of the 272 species of endemic mammals, birds and frogs are found in the cloud forest).

Question 49

What is a Mountain?

Answer 49

• Conspicuous elements of the landscape, but a scientific definition of a mountain is nearly impossible.
  
  • Mountains cannot be defined by climate.
  • and cannot be defined by elevation alone: there are elevated plateaus, such as the North American prairies at aorund 2000m elevation, the vast plateaus in central Asia, and steep coastal ranges rising a few hundred metres above sea levle.
  • The only common feature of mountains is their steepness (slope angle to the horizontal), which enables them to intercept rainfall and to create all those habitat types and disturbances which make exposure a driving factor of life.

Question 50

How big is the mountain area globally?

Answer 50

• Early attempt: considered all land above 300m a.s.l. but exlcuded the major plateau area, and decided that 24.3% of all land area outside Antarctica belongs to mountain classification.
  
  • Still includes tropical lowland forests, hot dessert terrain as well as some upland tundra in the polar region.
• New definition by global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment: using ruggedness as a simple and pragmatic proxi for steepness.
  
  • This definition forms the basis of the Mountain Biodiversity Portal.
  • Ruggedness is defined here as the maximal difference of at least 200m in elevation among nine neighbouring grid points on the 30 degrees grid of the WORLDCLIM database.
  • Using this definition, 16.5 Mio km squared or 12.3% of the terrestrial surface is rugged and therefore mountain terrain.
  • This is now considered the most reliable figure for the global mountain area outside of Antarctica.
• As elevation increases, mean temperature decreases.
  
  • Mountains are thus stratified into thermal belts, each with a characteristic flora and fauna.
  • The land below the natural climatic limit of trees (the tree line) is called the “montane” belt, the land above the tree line is called “alpine”, which by definition has no trees.
  • The uppermost part, where snow can fall and stay year round, is called the “nival” belt, which is still inhabited by a great number of species settling in favourable microhabitats.
  • The climatic treeline, in reality, is not a sharp line but a transitional zones (also called the “tree line ecotone”), is found globally at roughly the same mean temperature during the growing season, 6.5 plus or minus 0.8 degrees Celsius.
• The alpine and nival belts represent the only life zones on the globe that occur at all latitudes, although at different altitudes, which makes them very attractive for global comparisons of biodiversity and climatic change effects.

Question 51

What is GMBA - The Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment of DIVERSITAS ?

Answer 51

• GMBA main task is to explore and synthesize findings from research on the great biological richness of the mountains of the world and to provide input to policy for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in mountain regions.
• It documents and synthesizes knowledge on mountain biodiversity and communicates these findings to international policy fora and interest institutions.
• It acts as a platform for international mountain biodiversity research, organizes conferences and workshops and promotes participation in projects on mountain diversity.
• It has a network of about 400 researchers and policy makers who work in the filed of mountain biodiversity on all major mountain regions of the world; more than 1000 members from 71 countries are subscribers.
• Looks at 3 dimensions
  
  • the horizontal, biogeographic dimension with a zonal emphasis on the global scale;
  • the vertical bioclimatic dimension with elevation transects on a regional scale
  • the temporal dimension looking at past, present and future situations by revisiting sites and using modeling.
• Encourages a worldwide effort to mine geo-referenced databases on mountain organisms, underscoring the conviction that accurate geographical coordinates and altitude specifications (georeferences) or observed or collected biological species are the vital link between biological data and other geophysical information.

Question 52

What is The Mountain Diversity Portal: A Gateway to Biodiversity Data in Mountains?

Answer 52

• The GMBA Mountain Biodiversity Portal allows specific searches for primary biodiversity data provided by the Global Biodiversity Information Facility in a mountain-specific context.
• Data mining of existing archives of biodiversity offers new avenues to assess mountain biodiversity.
• The GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility) offers a data portal that connects more than 174 million single species occurrence records.
• Mountain areas are defined by the ruggedness of terrain, used by WORLDCLIM digital elevation data. Users can select mountain areas and specify them by elevation or bioclimatic life belts (such as the treeless alpine belt) and search and download biodiversity information on a regional or global scale.

Question 53

How are Amphibians Indicators of Change in Ethiopian Highlands?

Answer 53

• Indicator species are important for revealing ecosystem changes.
• In Ethiopian moutnain forests, habitats change rapidly or may even be destroyed due to land use of formerly pristine forests.
• The Bale Mountains in southereastern Ethiopia have some of the largest areas of continuous Afro-alpine and Afromontane forests in Africa; the highlands in the southwestern part of Ethiopia contain the largest surviving patches of “pristine” montane forest on the continent.
• However, natural habitats are increasingly being lost in Ethiopia at an alarming rate.
• Amphibians are highly diverse in this region and have good potential for use as an indicator species because of their relatively narrow environmental tolerance.
  
  • Almost 1/3 of the world’s ca. 6000 amphibian species are threatened with extinction; 168 species have been recently listed as extinct, often due to habitat change.
  • Ethiopian amphibians display a comparatively high diversity for Africa, particularly in the mountain regions.
  • Evidence from the Bale Mountains suggests that there has been significant recent change to forest habitats and potentially to amphibian communities.
• By examining species distributions across Ethiopian highland habitats and assessing how land-use changes have impacted biological communities, we aim to assist in assessing conservation priorities.
  
  • The project aims to contribute quantitative data on physical and biological systems to help toward mitigation and adaptive strategies in the conservation of mountain ecosystems.

Question 54

What are Significant about Iranian Mountains?

Answer 54

Iranian Mountains: A Great Place to See Plants You Never Have Seen Before

• Iran is a mountainous country harbouring an extraordinary vascular flora including many rare and endemic plant species in the alpine zone.
  
  • Alpine zones are above timber-line, a divide not easy to recognize since aridity is prominent in most regions.
• More than 100 mountain peaks can be found in Iran, some in Zagros and Alborz mountains which reach altitudes of more than 4000m.
• The upper limit of vascular plants is 4800m, the highest point where a plant has been found in Iran.
• A first evaluation of the vascular flora shows that 682 species belonging to 193 genera and 39 families are known from the alpine zone.
  
  • This zone is characterized by many species of hemicryptophytes and thorny cushions; species numbers decline strongly as altitude increases.
• The Iranian mountains are situated between Anatolia/Caucasus and the hindu Kush; their flora contains elements from both regions.
  
  • However, more than 50% of these species are endemic to Iran 9they occur no where else) and some are remarkable relic species, primarily local endemics with a narrow ecological range.
  • These plants need strong conservation and protection management, not only because they are rare but because the ecosystems where they live are fragile, often very restricted, small and isolated in high elevation areas.
  • These plants adapted to the cold are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate warming and intensive grazing over large parts of Iran’s mountains is expected to exert additional pressure on them.

Question 55

How do Alpine Animals Adapt to Alpine Environments in terms of Regulating Body Temperature?

Answer 55

• Animals need to be able to maintain their internal temperatures despite dramatic changes in ambient environmental temperature.
• If body temperature goes outside of an acceptable range, enzymes in cells will not be able to perform chemical reactions.
  
  • And if the contents of the cell freeze, ice crystals can form inside the cell which will damage cellular structures.
• The process that allows animals to maintain body temperature is called thermoregulation: it’s controlled by a negative feedback system, similar to how a thermostat works.
  
  • If nerve cells detect shifts in body temperature outside of the normal range, they send a message to the brain to initiate a corrective response.
  • Thermal regulation is achieved in different ways by ectotherms and endotherms.

Question 56

What are Ecotherms?

Answer 56

• animals that primarily regulate their temperatures using external sources of heat.
  
  • amphibians, reptiles and invertebrates are ectothermic.

Question 57

What are endotherms?

Answer 57

• Endotherms - create most of their heat from metabolic processes.
  
  • mammals and bird are typically endothermic

Question 58

What are some strategies for thermal regulation in alpine organisms?

Answer 58

• When you think of cold adaptation in animals, one obvious strategy is fur and feathers.
  
  • Hair and feather insulate animals by trapping a blanket of warm air near the skin, and hollow hairs or feathers can amplify this effect.
  • Just like pubescence on plants, fur and feathers act as insulation to retain heat and reduce convective cooling.
• Many animals in the alpine also have lower surface area relative to their mass, giving them a stocky appearance.
  
  • A smaller surface helps animals retain body heat.
  • They’re recognizable by their short appendages relative to similar animals adapted to lower elevations.
  • Eg. pikas are small lagomorphs that are most closely related to rabbits and hares.
    
    • Pikas live high in the mountains of Asia and North America and they have very reduced ears and limbs compared to their low elevation cousins.
• However, for smaller alpine-dwelling animals, it may be advantageous to have an increased surface area.
  
  • eg. the wing size of flying insects is often proportionately greater in high altitude populations, so they can cope with the thinner air encountered during flight.
• For actively flying insects, wing loading will be higher at greater elevations so these populations are subjected to stronger selection for wings with an increased surface area.
  
  • Eg. in males of the fly Drosophilia flavapulosa in Chile, both wing length and breadth are increased with elevation.
• Some alpine animals have darker colouration at higher elevations in order to absorb more solar radiative heat.
  
  • this warms their flight muscles.
  • For ectothermic insects, it can be advantageous to adjust body temperature through thermal basking and by selection for specific spectral reflectance and absorbance properties of the body surface.
  • Essentially, these alpine species are reducing their albedo.
  • Eg. Alpine butterflies of the genus Coleus or the Sulphur Butterflies.
    
    • In Coleus, this melanization is essential for thermoregulation because darker wings absorb more sunlight.
    • By basking in the sun, butterflies can raise their body temperature sufficiently to allow flight.
  • In one species of Coleus from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, the degree of wing melanization increased tenfold between 1800 and 3000m.
• Similar, altitude colour polymorphism, or morphological variation is seen in other insects as well, including leafhoppers, ladybirds (bugs) and grasshoppers.

Question 59

What does Dr. Felix Sperlin: Entological Museum at UofA note on Alpine Butterflies?

Answer 59

• Butterflies are very charismatic partly bc they are nice and furry in the mountains.
• One of the things you notice looking at these butterflies is that the ones from mountains have a beautiful, furry body and it has shorter, stumpier wings and it’s a little bit darker.
  
  • Ones from glasslands are sleek and thin and has hardly any hair.
• Being hairy keeps what little heat you might have gained from dissipating away.
• Hair is not the same as in mammals, but it functions the same way.
• Pigmentation really works nicely if you are dark and you have a little bit of sun, it can warm you up beautifully.
  
  • It does come at a potential cost tho
  • Eg. Butterfly that has quite a dark underside, and many of them rest with their undersides showing and another one that is just a little bit lighter, but it makes a difference to that specimen and they can be part of the same population, in not heating up as fast.
  • The ones that are darker tend to be found higher up in the mountain, where it’s a little bit cooler; and the ones that are lighter are further down, where there is actually a cost sometimes to heating up too much.
• Climate change has a lot of effects on butterflies.
  
  • It affects their distributions because some of the butterflies that were found further south in the mountains in the the Rockies are no longer found there and they are now found more frequently further north.
• Climate change will probably also have changes within a mountain
  
  • You’re going to find particular, especially dark and hairy butterflies found higher up on the mountain
  • There is always the danger that they get squeezed off the top of the mountain and that’s the end of them.
• The Strickland Museum of Entomology has almost a hundred year history now and that means it contains a huge amount of information you just can’t get with a basic ecological study bc here are specimens that people have collected in a lot of places that you can still get access to decades later and it’s easy to document that there are real changes that have happened during that time.
  
  • Collections like this are really good for showing a great variety of specimens and species that you can do phylogenetic analyses on it and that can give you access to deep time, to time in the order of hundreds of thousands, millions of years that can show major climate changes and even mountains rising up in places where they weren’t there before.

Question 60

What behavioural adaptations do alpine animals have in terms of ecotherms?

Answer 60

• Concerns hour-to-hour, day-to-day, and even seasonal choices made by animals that actively contribute to temperature regulation.
• Ectotherms are very capable at surviving at a range of temperatures, but since they’re not able to regulate their internal heat production, they rely on their behavioural adaptations to keep their temperatures within their normal range.
  
  • Ectotherms rely on external production of heat, so they often have periods of inactivity that are correlated with cooler temperatures.
  • When their internal temperatures enzymes become less effective and their metabolism decreases.
  • Small ectotherms that are highly susceptible to heat loss due to their relatively large surface area rely heavily on microclimates to survive heavily on microclimates to survive the harsh helpline conditions.
    
    • eg. recall that the interior of cushion plants are often favourable microclimates that can host a variety of invertebrate species, and pollinators may be found seeking refuge from the cold inside flowers.
• One species of rock-dwelling lizard in the genus Phymaturus that thrive at elevations above 4,000m in the Andes is a good example of how animals can use behavioural responses to adapt to cold temperatures.
  
  • At night, the lizard burrows underground where the soil provides insulation from cold nights.
  • In the morning, the lizard emerges from its burrow and generates heat by basking in the sun, which can increase its internal temperature to 30 degrees Celsius even if ambient temperatures are around freezing.

Question 61

What Behavioural Adaptations do Endothermic animals have for living in alpine environments?

Answer 61

• Extreme low temperatures during winter are also a challenge for endothermic organisms in alpine regions.
  
  • Some animals opt to avoid them altogether by moving to less exposed areas.
  • Large mammals, such a bighorn sheep, migrate to lower elevations during the winters, while birds migrate to lower latitudes.
  • Small alpine animals migrate less frequently because this would require relatively high energy expenditure.
• However, movement over shorter distances between microclimates can be a remarkably effective way for animals to thermoregulate.
  
  • The collared pika, Octonacolaris, lives in the mountains of Yukon and Alaska.
  • Collared Pikas minimize their exposure to extreme ambient temperatures by seeking shelter in piles of boulders adjacent to alpine meadows.
    
    • Boulders provide protection from the sun, rain, wind and fluctuation in air temperature.
    • In both summer and winter, pikas use these sheltered places to help maintain their own thermal equilibrium.

Question 62

What are Physiological Adaptations?

Answer 62

• Physiological adaptations are involuntary passive responses that are internally regulated.
• Physiological adaptations that are used to warm animals can be categorized into two groups:
  
  1. Involve Heat Conservation
  2. Involves Heat Generation

Question 63

Physiological adaptations that are used to warm animals can be categorized into what two groups?

Answer 63

1. Involve Heat Conservation
2. Involves Heat Generation

Question 64

What are 3 Adaptations in Alpine Animals that Reduce the Rate at Which They Lose Heat to the Environment?

Answer 64

1. By raising their fur to increases the barrier of warm air that provides insulation.
   
   • This reaction called piloerection is an involuntary reflex caused by muscle contractions near the surface of the skin.
     
     • Piloerection may seem like a small thing but it can be very effective, in fact, despite having lost most of the hair that covered our ancestors, the involuntary response is still present in humans and is what produces goosebumps.
       1. At low temperatures, blood vessels near the skin decrease in diameter in a process called vasoconstriction.
     • By reducing the amount of heat brought to the surface of the body, vasoconstriction restricts heat transfer to the environment.
     • Vasoconstriction is the reason that people appear pale when they’re cold.
       2. Countercurrent Heat Exchange - this adaptation involve a special arrangement in the circulatory system whereby arteries that carry warm blood to the extremities run parallel and in close proximity to the veins that return blood to the trunk of the body.
     • The temperature gradient created by the countercurrent flow causes heat in arterial blood to be progressively transferred to cooler venous blood.
     • This means that arterial blood is substantially cooler when it reaches the body’s extremities so less heat is lost to the environment.

Question 65

What Physiologic Adaptation do Endotherms Specifically Have?

Answer 65

• All organisms produce heat as a byproduct to metabolism, but endotherms have adaptations that amplify their internal heat production under cold conditions in a process called thermogenesis.
  
  • One way that thermogenesis can occur is through shivering, produced by small, involuntary contractions of skeletal muscles.
  • Shivering is common in both birds and mammals.

Question 66

What is Non-shivering Thermogenesis?

Answer 66

• Non-shivering Thermogenesis - involves the release of a hormone that increases an animals’ metabolic rate and is found mostly in mammals.
  
  • Although non-shivering thermogenesis can take place throughout the body, alpine species, especially those that hibernate, often have a tissue called brown fat that’s specialized for heat generation.
  • Brown fact stores are an important source of heat during periods of hibernation.

Question 67

How can animals increase insulation in alpine environments?

Answer 67

• Many animals spend the short summers at high elevations gathering energy and resources to build up insulating fat that allows them to survive the winter.
• Increased insulation can also be achieved by growing additional layers of hair or feathers or seeking shelter in burrows.
  
  • Hibernation - an adaptation that saves animals energy by reducing their activity levels.
  • Hibernation is a type of long-term torpor which is a state of low metabolic rate and decreased temperature.
  • During hibernation, the heart rate and breathing is substantially reduced.
    
    • eg. a marmot’s heart rate drops from 180 to 200 beats per minute to only 28 to 38 beats per minute during hibernation.
    • And their respiratory rate decreases from 60 breaths per minute to 1 to 2 breaths per minute.
    • Hibernation is not the same as hypothermia because hibernating animals readjust their set point for temperature, essentially establishing a new lower temperature limit. → temperature continues to be regulated by a negative feedback system, so that if temperature drops below the set point, thermogenesis is initiated.

Question 68

Can ecotherms hibernate in the same way as endotherms?

Answer 68

• Ectotherms can’t hibernate in the same way, but many species are capable of overwintering under extreme conditions.
  
  • Some insects that live at high elevations adapt to cold temperatures using super-cooling - a process where water cools below its freezing point without changing phase into a solid.
  • Remarkably, without a source for nucleation or forming crystals, water can cool to below minus 40 degrees Celsius without freezing.
• Some species produce unique carbohydrates and amino acids before winter, which helps prevent their cells from freezing.
  
  • One of those carbohydrates, propylene glycol, is the same chemical used in automotive antifreeze.
  • These cryoprotectants protect tissues from freezing and can prevent some of the adverse effects of extreme low temperatures.
• Other species are considered freezing tolerant and can survive ice formation within their tissues.
  
  • Eg. the New Zealand Alpine Cockroach, Celatoblatta quinquemaculata. → these cold-adapted cockroaches can survive freezing down to about -6 degrees Celsius.
  • However, lower temperatures are lethal.

Question 69

Alpine animals not only have adaptations to survive cold winters, but they also have adaptations that enable them to thermoregulate during warm summers. How?

Answer 69

• Animals can dissipate heat through heat-exchange surfaces and evaporative cooling.
• Heat exchange surfaces accelerate hat loss through specialized appendages like ears
  
  • these appendages facilitate the transfer of heat from the animal to the environment bc they have a high surface area with many blood vessels close to the surface and are only lightly insulated.
  • Although alpine animals have heat exchange surfaces the relative surface area of these appendages tends to be smaller than those of animals in warmer environments because large heat exchange surfaces can detrimentally affect their ability to retain heat.
• Evaporative cooling can help animals keep cool through the evaporation of water from the body.
  
  • This can be accomplished either through sweating or panting.
  • Sweating is a passive process relying on air currents to remove water secreted by sweat glands onto the skin.
  • Panting is an active process in which animals produce air currents to remove water across respiratory surfaces.

Question 70

What other parts of the environment do alpine animals adapt to?

Answer 70

• unstable terrain
  
  • many mountain-dwelling animals including mountain goats and yak have specialized hooves that allow them to safely and efficiently navigate steep and rocky mountain terrain.
  • These hooves combine a hard outer edge with a soft inner pad that provides cushioning for jumping between rocks.
  • The structure of the hooves helps animals grip rocks and resist slipping.
• unproductive habitats
  
  • mountain animals (like mountain goats) have adapted to the unproductive nature of their terrain where food supplies are sparse eg. mountain sheep and yak, like other ungulates, have a multichambered stomach that allows them to increase the amount of nutrients extracted from the hard, dry vegetation that forms their diet.
  • As a result, they can eat almost any type of vegetation, reducing the amount of time spent searching for food.
  • Some species can also consume large amounts of vegetation quickly and then retreat to protected areas away from predators where they can safely re-chew and digest their food.
• low oxygen levels
  
  • many alpine animals also have unique adaptations that allow them to survive low oxygen levels at high elevations.
  • They tend to have large hearts and lungs, and more blood cells to carry oxygen.
  • For example, llamas in the Andes are exceptionally well adapted to living in the apline.
    
    • they have the highest concentration of red blood cells of all mammals, and the process of binding and transporting oxygen in their blood using hemoglobin is very efficient.

Question 71

What are White-Tailed Ptargmigan?

Answer 71

White-Tailed Ptarmigan

• White-Tailed Ptarmigan are the smallest grouse in North America and well adapted to life at high elevations.
• In fact, it’s the only bird in North America to reside permanently in the alpine zone.
• One essential adaptation of ptarmigan is that they change the colour of their feathers seasonally from white in winter to speckled brown in summer, allowing them to be camoflauged from predators year-round.
  
  • During winter, their white plumage extends to cover their feet, providing valuable insulation to their extremities so less heat is lost to the cold snow.
  • Feather on their feat also act as snowshoes to help them navigate the deep snow.
• Insulation provided by their feathers and layers of fat accumulated during summers means they can effectively thermoregulate, even in extreme cold.
• Ptarmigan can maintain body temperatures around +40 degrees Celsius throughout the winter despite temperatures that dip well below freezing.
• They even have feather around their nostrils to warm air prior to entry into the respiratory tract.
• Behavioural adaptations of the ptarmigan also enable them to control their temperature across seasons.
  
  • the sedentary lifestyle of ptarmigan helps them conserve energy during the winter since they tend to avoid flight and sit still for long periods.
  • Ptarmigan have also developed unique ways to take advantage of the abundance of snow at high elevations.
    
    • To cope with the limited supply of liquid water, during the winter, Ptarmigan eat snow.
    • In the winters, they roost in snow banks to keep warm and in summer they bathe in snow to keep cool.

Question 72

What are Marmots and how are they adapted to alpine conditions?

Answer 72

• There are 14 species of marmots in the world, 6 in North America and 8 in Eurasia.
• These are large rodents in the squirrel family, and they are expert hibernators, spending about 200 days a year in hibernation.
  
  • They enter their burrows, called hibernaculum, as early as September and they don’t emerge again until April or May
• To provide extra warmth over the long winter, marmots insulate their burrows with dried plant material.
• During hibernation, marmots cycle through long period of torpor that are briefly interrupted by boughts of wakefulness.
  
  • During these recovery periods, increases in metabolism allows animals to become active.
  • When torpor is induced, marmots decrease their set point temperature from around 40 degrees Celsius to less than 5 degrees Celsius, almost matching ambient temperature in their burrow.
• Marmots rely entirely on their fat stores to survive.
• In the late spring, when marmots emerge from their burrows, they reproduce and then dedicate their time to eating and packing on as much fat as possible.
  
  • They often double their mass in preparation for another winter of hibernation.
• The social behaviour of marmots is also a useful adaptation that helps them keep warm during winter and avoid predation during summer.
  
  • Huddling together in social family groups while they overwinter reduces heat loss and increases their survival.
  • Above ground, on the exposed alpine tundra where marmots forage, they’re very conspicuous to potential predators.
  • As a result, they are continuously vigilant to detect danger and will produce high-pitch whistles to alert colony members so they can retreat to safety in their burrows.
• The unique adaptation to the Alpine also make marmots a very useful sentinel species, for helping us to understand the impacts of other environmental changes in mountains.
  
  • For example, the most endangered mammal in Canada is the Vancouver Island Marmot.
  • A census in late 2003 resulted in an account of only 21 wild marmots on Vancouver Island.
  • The main cause of the species decline was attributed to increased predation associated with habitat changes caused by clear-cutting, followed by rapid forest regeneration.
  • But over the past 15 years, marmots have been released from captivity into the wild and the population has recovered to almost 400 individuals.
  • is a good indication that marmots can adapt to changing conditions.
• In Europe, alpine marmots were successfully introduced in the Pyrenees in 1948, where the marmot had disappeared at the end of the Pleistocene some 10,000 years ago.
  
  • They were first release by some French hunters from the Alps as a food source for brown bears and golden eagles.
  • In order to reduce predation on Chamois, a goat, antelope genus native to the mountains in Europe.
  • However, the marmot populations in the Pyrenees have exploded to over 10,000 individuals from an initial release of just 400.
    
    • provides considerable evidence for the adaptability of this species to survive in mountain environments.
  • Now there are even questions about whether these huge numbers are actually causing damage and unbalancing the ecosystem.
• Marmots may also impact the flora of the alpine and subalpine meadows and may compete with alpine herbivores like ptarmigan or even livestock.
• Marmots may also act as vectors for diseases such as the plague.

Question 73

What does Dr. Isabel Catalan Barrio note on Marmot Adaptations in Alpine Environments in Spain?

Answer 73

• The first marmot introductions to the Pyrenees were carried out with conservation and recreational purposes in mind.
• Initially it was hunters and landowners who carried out these introduction, but during the 1970s and 80s it became a major main practice of National Park staff.
• It didn’t take very long for stable populations of marmots to establish and spread over the southern side of the Pyrenees.
  
  • Sunny slopes, together with the lack natural predators or competitors, rapidly facilitated their expansions throughout, where they seem to be doing quite well.
• The rapid expansion is characteristic of an invasive species, but the impacts of marmots on these mountain ecosystems has not been thoroughly evaluated.
• In fact, marmots are generally regarded as a valuable species for promoting tourism in the Pyrenees.
  
  • Marmots occupy the subalpine belt, which is the area below the treeline that has been converted to grasslands by human management.
  • So marmots utilize the same areas as grazing livestock and can interfere with agricultural practices.
  • Because marmots dig barrels and they consume alpine vegetation, they can impact environments in which they live/
• It has been suggested that marmots could alter food webs in the mountains.
  
  • Eg. marmots provide abundant food for some predators that could affect other declining species, such as the black grouse in the Alps and chamois and hares in the Pyrenees.
• Burrowing by marmots can modify hydrological properties of soils but also provide shelter for other alpine species.
  
  • Marmot burrows are known to create unique micro-ecosystems where a community of high-altitude insects can survive.
  • Marmot burrows are also used by other animals, such as foxes or as temporary shelter by ptarmigan, toads and snakes.

Question 74

What are Yak?

Answer 74

• The yak is a long-haired bovet found throughout the Himalayan region of south-central Asia, including the Tibetan plateau.
• Yaks have many adaptations to cope with the challenges of extreme cold, low oxygen high solar radiation, uneven terrain and slow growing seasons.
• Yak do best when the annual mean temperature is below 5 degrees Celsius and the average in the hottest month doesn’t exceed 13 degrees Celsius.
• Yak cope with cold mostly by conserving heat.
  
  • This is accomplished with a tick fleece of course outer hair and an undercoat of fine down.
  • Yak also accumulate a layer of subcutaneous fat prior to the winter, which helps them with heat conservation and provides an energy reserve.
  • Their skin is relatively thick and their sweat glands are mostly non-functional.
    
    • This is one reason why yak are intolerant of high ambient temperature.
• Adaptations to low oxygen include:
  
  • a large chest with 14 to 15 pairs of thoracic ribs, which is more than any other cattle, large lungs, and a large lungs and a large heart relative to their overall body size.
  • So yak are capable of breathing rapidly and taking in large amounts of air.
• Their large rumen is also a useful adaptation for alpine grazing on a mixed diet of grasses and sedges and some shrubs.
  
  • Yak can graze longer grass using their tongues, but they can also graze very short vegetation by using their incisor, teeth and lips.
  • Domesticated yaks have been kept by mountain people for thousands of years for their meat, milk. fibre and as beasts of burden for transportation across mountain passes.
• Their dried droppings are also an important fuel for heat and cooking, especially above the tree line.

Question 75

How are birds adapted for alpine environments?

Answer 75

• Birds have a considerable advantage over mammals including humans at high altitudes.
  
  • In particular, birds are well adapted for efficient oxygen diffusion.
  • The surface area of their lungs is almost 10 times greater than in humans, and the barrier between the lung and the capillaries is two to eight times thinner, leading to greater diffusion of oxygen.
• In humans, air travels into the lungs and then out of the lungs.
  
  • But in birds, air travels in one direction through the lung, opposite to the blood flow in the surrounding capillaries.
  • This unidirectional flow means that the air has a high concentration of oxygen that diffuses more readily.
• Birds also have another advantage over mammals in their ability to migrate over long distances.
  
  • Eg. Bar-Headed Geese are common birds native to South-Central Asia. Every fall, these geese migrate from their breeding grounds in Mongolia to India, returning again in the spring.
    
    • This journey takes them across the Tibetan Plateau and over the Himalayas, a mountain range that contains the highest peaks in the world.
  • Laurence Swan’s recount of the bar-headed geese in that region: “I stood beside the Barun Glacier near Mount Makalu, the fifth highest mountain in the world at 8,463m above sea level… Then, as if from the stars above me, I heard the honking of bar-headed geese…”
  • But flying is the most costly exhausting form of locomotion.
  • So to be able to migrate for over 1000km at an altitude that averages 4500m, bar-headed geese have developed specialized physiology. allowing them to complete this journey.

Question 76

How has the Bar-Headed Geese Adapted to Alpine Environments?

Answer 76

• Compared to other geese, bar-headed geese have lungs that are 25% bigger, meaning that the volume of oxygen inhaled with each breath is larger.
  
  • During high-intensity flight, they preferentially breathe deeper instead of faster, which reduces dead space ventilation and maximizes oxygen diffusion in the lung.
• As well, the hemoglobin of bar-headed geese has a high affinity for oxygen.
  
  • this means that they can transport more oxygen in the blood.
  • In addition, they have more capillaries in their heart and muscles.
    
    • this means that the diffusion of oxygen at the tissue is higher, helping these geese fly at these extreme altitudes.

Question 77

What does Bill Milsom say on the adaptations of Bar-Headed Geese?

Answer 77

• Birds in general have suite of physiological adaptations that allow them to undergo powered flight.
• We find in the bar-headed goose now that there are further adaptations that extend that ability and allow them to fly in a very thin air where there are very low levels of oxygen.
• What’s involved are adaptations at every step in a cascade that goes from the environment down to the mitochondria where ATP are produced.
• 5 steps in that chain:
  
  1. Getting oxygen into the lung: so on the respiratory side
  2. Then moving oxygen from the lung into the blood
  3. From the ability of the blood to bind and transport oxygen
  4. Then of the heart to move that oxygen from the lung to the tissues
  5. Adaptations at the level of the tissues for moving oxygen from the capillaries in the tissue into the mitochondria themselves.
• We see adaptations at every step in that cascade in these high altitude migrants over and above what you routinely see in most other birds.
• Why would the bar-headed geese migrate over the Himalaya rather than around to avoid these high altitudes?
  
  • The theory is that the birds were making those migrations long before the mountains themselves existed.
  • So they were going from the lowland feeding areas, the wetlands in India where food is abundant through the winter, to their summer breeding grounds up in Mongolia in the Tibetan Plateau, where they molt, grow new feather, they can’t fly, they reproduce, they have their chicks, but these are areas that are wide open, big lakes, flat areas, you can see predators coming from miles around, they’re safe on the lakes, and then when the chicks are ready in the fall, they make that migration in reverse back to where the food is abundant for the winter months.

Question 78

How have organisms adapted to living in mountain lakes?

Answer 78

• Organisms living in mountain lakes experience different environmental conditions relative to those living on land.
• Eg. water has a high, specific heat capacity relative to air, which means that aquatic environments lose and gain heat less rapidly.
  
  • As a result, temperature extremes are less pronounced in aquatic compared with adjacent terrestrial habitats.
• However, cold water and sediment that originates from glaciers as well as extended seasonal ice cover, ultimately limit the primary productive in many mountain lakes.
• Mountain lakes are also different from lower elevation systems because most are naturally fishless.
• In the absence of large fish predators, mountain lake ecosystems are dominated by large, often endemic zooplankton.
  
  • Many of these zooplankton species have bright red or black pigments that protect them from high ultraviolet radiation.
• Most of the lakes in the mountain national parks in Canada were fishless before 1900.
  
  • A survey of 1464 lakes in Jasper, Banff, Yoho, Waterton, Revelstoke, and Glacier National Parks found that over 95% of the lakes did not contain fish until they were stocked in the 20th century,
  • The few that did support natural fish populations contained simple communities of only one to four species depending on the size, altitude, and exposure of the lake.

Question 79

How are Bull Trout adapted to alpine lakes?

Answer 79

• Was once the most widespread native trout in the mountain parks.
• They are part of the Char family, which includes Brook Trout and Lake Trout.
• Bull trout require water temperatures generally below 13 degrees Celsius as well as clean gravel beds, deep pools, and large systems of interconnected waterways to accommodate spawning migrations.
• Bull trout favour the deep pools of cold lakes and large rivers, as well as high, cold mountain headwaters.
• In recent times, bull trout has disappeared from much of its former range.
  
  • this decline is the result of damaged habitat, overfishing and the introduction of fish species which have displaced it.
• During the last century, Rocky Mountain lakes were extensively stocked with sport fish to promote recreational fishing.
  
  • Fish that were introduced into previously fishless lakes had large effects on their ecosystems.
  • These introduced fish rapidly consumed, large, conspicuous plankton and tadpoles, contributing to the loss of over 90% mountain yellow-legged frog populations.
  • And they also had a large impact on native fish populations.

Question 80

What does Mark Taylor tell us about non-native fish in Banff National Park?

Answer 80

• A number of non-native fish have been introduced to the national park: some of them being non-native and also some native species.
• One examples of non-native species is the mosquito fish → were introduced a long time ago deliberately for the purpose of mosquito control and that was occurring all over the world.
  
  • what we know now is that they’re really not that effective at mosquito control and they do have an impact on the ecosystem.
  • eg. the mosquito fish are partially responsible for the extinction of the Banff long-nosed bass.
• Back to the turn of the century, there was an interest in providing those recreational angling experiences for the park visitors.
  
  • A lot of the species that were introduced were things that were familiar to people from back home in Eastern Canada:
  • eg the Eastern brook Trout was introduced widely across the park and also rainbow trout → the 2 predominant non-native species.
• As far as native species, there’s a lot of management focus put on to West Slope Cutthroat Trout (most conservation effort going into those).
  
  • they were legally listed by Canada’s National Species at Risk Act and Parks Canada is legally mandated to develop a recovery strategy and action plan and we’re currently working through those actions that will hopefully take us to a point where we can recover the West Slope Cutthroat Trout and actually take it right off of the Species at Risk Act.
  • →inching away towards their goal → part of that is going in and actively removing some of these non-native species from lakes where they threaten a downstream population of native species.
  • They want to basically prevent the propagation of non-native genes downstream and stop hybridization with our native species.

Question 81

What is important for food in the backcountry?

Answer 81

• Before any cooking happens, you need to move away from your campsite. → keep food preparation and food well away from where you sleep.
  
  • eg pick a spot where you can hang up your food high to keep any interested animals at bay.
• Backcountry cooking comes down to a simple math equation: calories vs. weight to carry vs. ease of preparation.
  
  • look for simple meals that only require one pot to prepare, they’re high in calories and as light as possible.
• Items that are instant like oatmeal or rice often have significantly less calories than their quick counterparts, so spend some time looking over the daily percentage tables.
• Freeze-dried meals are attractive based on their ease of use, but may not give the required calories or energy either
• An easy way to boost calories in a meal is to add a spoonful of butter, cream cheese or even smooth peanut butter.
• When considering cooking times, remember that meals that need longer cook times require more stove fuel, so you may pay a weight penalty there.
  
  • transition from a liquid fuel stove to a cannister stove system based on the ease of use in all but the coldest weather.
• He says his critical meal of the day is lunch, which starts immediately after breakfast and ends as dinner is being served.
  
  • the point is that constant small portion snacks is a better way to maintain sustainable energy over the course of the day or trip.
  • trail mix, energy bars, fruit bars, dried fruit, meats and cheeses, jerky and dense baked squares or cookies are all good options for the lunch menu.
    
    • keeping some of these items in a pocket so you have immediate access ensures that the energy fire remains stoked throughout the day.
• Variety throughout the day, certainly on multi-day trips is nice as well.

Question 82

What is the challenge to staying hydrated in the mountains?

Answer 82

• Staying hydrated is even more important than calories while out there exerting yourself.
  
  • The real challenge with hydration is deciding whether to treat your water and how to do it.

Question 83

What are the 4 things you may need to treat your water for in the mountains?

Answer 83

1. Protozoa
2. Bacteria
3. Viruses
4. Particulate
   - The presence of these things really depend on where in the world you are located, so try to find this info before you go so you can plan to manage for them accordingly.
   - The 4 treatment options are:
   
   • heat
   • chemicals
   • filtering
   • purifying
     - → these treatments manage the pathogens differently.
     - Planning ahead of time is critical when it comes to water management systems. → it’s key that you choose the right system for the water sources that you will have access to.

Question 84

What are the 4 ways you can treat your water?

Answer 84

• The 4 treatment options are:
  
  • heat
  • chemicals
  • filtering
  • purifying
• → these treatments manage the pathogens differently.
• Planning ahead of time is critical when it comes to water management systems. → it’s key that you choose the right system for the water sources that you will have access to.

Question 85

What are the main stressors that act on lakes and ponds in the mountains?

Answer 85

1. High UV
2. Low terrestrial inputs
3. Cold Temperature
4. High temperature variation
5. Short growing season
6. Low connectivity / gene flow

Question 86

How does High UV cause stress to lake and ponds in mountains?

Answer 86

• Ultraviolet (UV) radiation increases with elevation
• Strong UV puts organisms at risk to DNA damage
• Organisms in such environments have adapted to protect themselves from these effects:
  
  1. pigmentation
  2. increased enzymatic repair
  3. behavioural adaptations
• UV is that high energy rays that are causing the DNA damage and then we have the visible light spectrum and infrared radiation which gets absorbed quiet easily in the water.

Question 87

What are the adaptations to High UV in mountains?

Answer 87

1. Pigmentation - acts as a protective layer against harmful UV rays, but at a cost.
   
   • eg. Melanin and carotenoid pigments → the darker ones are due to pigmentation which acts like a sunscreen against the sun
   • increase in carotenoid pigments → that red-ish pigment that’s actually in changing leaves in the fall.
   • so these copapods develop this carotenoid pigments to protect themselves from UV but it comes at a cost → when you have fish introduced, they can’t develop this pigment bc then they’re really susceptible to predation.
   • when these organisms develop this pigmentation, they have a lower growth rate and so it typically does have some effect on their overall fitness when they develop this pigmentation.
2. Increased enzymatic repair - organisms in high UV environments increase their damage repair systems.
   
   • the repair system that organisms use that is like a physiological adaptation to increase the repair of that DNA damage as it’s happening.
   • When we have warmer temperatures, that actually can happen more quickly so there is maybe some potential feedback that this adaptation could be useful as we see warming climate.
3. 1. Behavioural adaptations - organisms remain in refuge (hiding) during daylight hours.
      - so during daytime when UV is the strongest organisms stay in hiding at the bottom of the lake
      - so if you have a deeper system then they can avoid the UV rays by staying at the bottom during the strongest UV hours (Deep-water zone aka Aphotic zone)
      - Then at night they are able to go up top and feed (Open-water Zone aka Photic Zone)

Question 88

What is Watermelon Snow?

Answer 88

“Watermelon Snow” (example of this Pigmentation) Chlamydomonas nivalis

• Green algae containing carotenoid pigments in resting stage
  
  • leads to this pink snow
  • pigment absorbs the UV light and absorbs the warmth and you actually end up seeing a “sun cup” bc it keeps melting down layers bc it’s absorbing the UV radiation.
• Snow fleas well adapted
  
  • feed on this watermelon snow
  • snow fleas also have darker pigmentation so that they can absorb the UV and have their warmth and increase their metabolism in that way
  • they have a little spring that helps them hop around on the snow and eat the algae that they feed on
  • have a glycerin antifreeze protein that allows them to survive in such cold temps

Question 89

What is the stressor on alpine lakes and ponds of Low Terrestrial Inputs?

Answer 89

• Above treeline, there are less organic matter inputs (ie. leaves, soil, decomposing material)
• Lower nutrient inputs (oligotrophic)
  
  • less leaves, less soil, less decomposing material so we end up with these clear systems that don’t have a lot of nutrients so they’re really low productivity at the bottom level
  • not a whole lot of nutrient inputs so you don’t have a whole lot of agal productivity and primary productivity which then those larger zooplankton can feed on
• Low dissolved organic carbon (DOC) decreases UV attenuation, and makes water clearer and more sensitive to UV.
  
  • kind of a positive feedback systems where you have less DOC → higher UV → organisms are more sensitive to that UV again
• Left: attentuates more UV energy
  
  • browner in colour → more DOC
  • absorbs the UV light before organisms can be damaged by it
• Right: UV radiation penetrates deeper
  
  • more clear water, low DOC environment
  • stronger UV radiation that penetrates deeper and affects those organisms more strongly
• DOC is the dissolved organic carbon that causes the brownish tinge
• DOC coming in from the terrestrial inputs surrounding it (the trees)
• DOC acts as a protective barrier for the underwater community.

Question 90

What is the stressor of cold temperature on alpine lakes and ponds?

Answer 90

• As you go up higher in the alpine you have colder temps
• Adapt by:
• Metabolic constraints
  
  • do everything more slowly
  • their physiology slows down, they move more slowly especially when there is not that UV energy coming into that system (eg on a cloudy day)
• Behavioural adaptations (low mobility to conserve energy)
  
  • conserve energy for getting food
  • often see organisms that are really big which allows them to be more efficient grazers
  Larger size = more efficient grazing
  • bc they don’t have to choose just the small phytoplankton to eat, they can eat a wide range of phytoplankton
  • large size allows them to be really efficient → opportunistic grazers → can eat anything

Question 91

What is the stressor of High Temperature Variation in Alpine Lakes and Ponds?

Answer 91

• In the shallower alpine ponds we see really high temperature variation
• Shallow, lots of mixing
• Graph shows is the dial fluctuations of temperature → fluctuations in a single day
  
  • it can be up to 20 degrees Celsius that these ponds will change temp in a single day
• There are lab tests that have shown that it decreases growth rate of species that are in these kind of conditions
• Do species have adaptations to these temperature variations?
  
  • hasn’t been directly tested yet
• They are very flexible environments so the species then have to be very flexible and able to catch up with their metabolic rate as it warms and cools everyday.
  
  • when you get the high UV stress during the day, and the temperature peaks really high, and then at night when you get the wind turning it over and cooling it down to a much lower temperature
  • can be really stressful for the organisms that live in there

Question 92

What is the Stressor of a Short Growing Season on Alpine lakes and ponds?

Answer 92

• The ice off season can be anywhere from a few weeks at higher latitudes to a few months.
• ends up causing low primary productivity bc there is just not a lot of time for that sun to get through the ice and for phytoplankton to photosynthesize and be that bottom-up control of the ecosystem.
• Most of the water comes from the ice and snow melt and so that’s happening in the spring and there is not a lot of time for the organisms to actually grow
• Low hydrological inputs, so many of the smaller ponds dry up at the end of the summer
  
  • so organisms need to have an adaptation to deal with that desiccation
• Many organisms are desiccation tolerant and create resting eggs (ephippia) to survive in dry basin.
  
  • and then come back to life basically in the next season

Daphnia resting eggs

• Daphnia species live in shallower ponds that might disappear by the end of the seasons and what they do under stressful conditions is produce these resting eggs and these resting eggs are tolerant of desiccation
  
  • so they hang out in the sediments until they are re-hydrated in the following year with the snow melt and the rehydration of the system.
• Allows the species to not be eradicated every year when the pond evaporates.

Question 93

What is the stressor of low connectivity / gene flow on alpine lakes and ponds?

Answer 93

• Genetic variation can “rescue” a population from stressors
  
  • variation in clone lines and diversity can rescue a population from stressors because if a single clone line is more sensitive to a certain stressor, then there are multiple ones and other ones can react differently and rescue a population from being completely eliminated.
• In mountains, there is LOW GENE FLOW so there is lower genetic diversity.
• Normally we have populations that are separated bc they are isolated pond or lake systems, but we have gene flow so that organisms can move back and forth between populations.
  
  • If one of them experiences a stress, then another one can come in and “rescue” that population
• Problem is in the mountains, you are blocking off that gene flow a lot of the time.
  
  • Is sth that is really important to figure out the resilience of a population and whether they are able to have that dispersal from other populations that would bring it back after a stress event.

Question 94

What is the Single Founder Problem (low propagule pressure)?

Answer 94

• The idea that if these species are able to disperse from one population to another, often times they have what is called low propagule pressure - a lot of them aren’t going to make it.
• Often times they get there but they aren’t able to flourish.
  
  • Even tho these species are asexual in nature they can start a population from one, it’s a lot less likely in these cases when the mountains are acting as a barrier to this dispersal.
  • is way less likely to happen

Question 95

What are Anthropogenically Introduced Threats to Alpine Diversity?

Answer 95

• Low diversity at high elevation
  
  • low diversity taxonomically → don’t have a lot of species
  • low diversity functionally → if one of those species is eliminated then we’re losing an entire function of a community
  • don’t have a lot of diversity genetically → due to that low gene flow that happens in mountains environments
• Specialist species that are unique to the region are sensitive to climate change
  
  • endemic bc they’re so locally adapted to where they were found in the alpine → makes them susceptible to climate change
• Other threats include: stocking of non-native fish, anthropogenic nutrient deposition, toxin deposition.

Question 96

Why are alpine lakes sensitive to climate change?

Answer 96

• bc they’re really low nutrient (oligotrophic)
• bc they have low temperatures so they’re very specially cold adapted
  
  • so as you see warmer temperatures happening, they are not able to move up in elevation anymore when they’re already at the top → can’t escape that warming
  • so have high sensitivity to climate warming as well as episodic stressor events

Question 97

What is the significance of fish-stocking in alpine lakes?

Answer 97

• Almost no naturally occurring fish above tree line
• One of these episodic stressor events is fish stocking in the alpine → in the Canadian Rockies especially there is no naturally occurring fish above treeline, however from 1950s-1970s we had this huge fish stocking event of rainbow and Brook Trout
• Many fishless lakes were stocked until the 1970s with rainbow and brook trout
• Some non-native fish still persist
  
  • bc there’s lower angler pressure in the Alpine and they actually do really well in those cold water temperatures
• What is happening is we’re getting a shift in the whole community
  
  • bc before we had these big grazers and big copapods that were specially adapted to this system → they get eaten by the fish and it has a whole top-down trophic cascade that changes the food web
• Eg. see food chain from before

Question 98

What is the Before and After of Fish Stocking?

Answer 98

• Decrease in those big grazers as well as the daphnia species
  
  • So when that happens we decrease the grazing pressure on the phytoplankton and end up with a n increase in large phytoplankton species bc they’re no longer being eaten by the grazers bc the grazers were being eaten by the fish.
• By adding a top predator like fish, it can really cause a lot of shifts in the system overall.

Question 99

What is Anthropogenic Nutrient Deposition?

Answer 99

• Phytoplankton need both Nitrogen (N) and Phosphorous (P) to grow
• N from anthropogenic sources affects remote alpine water bodies by rain and snow deposition (i.e. Colorado Front Ranges)
  
  • by changing the nutrients that we’re adding into a system we’re affecting the food-chain from the bottom up and so in a lot of these systems phytoplankton need both nitrogen and phosphorous to grow and when we see this nitrogen addition to these systems phytoplankton that are normally nitrogen-limited shift to being phosphorous limited
• Phytoplankton are normally N-limited, but shifts to P-limited when N levels increase
  
  • can lead to algal blooms in these systems even tho we tend to think of them as really low productivity systems.
• Changes in chemistry lead to changes in higher trophic levels.

Question 100

What is Toxin Deposition and its effects on alpine lakes?

Answer 100

• “Grasshopper effect” brings toxins from warmer areas to condense in colder areas like the arctic and the alpine
  
  • we see this movement of toxins from warmer areas and they will condense in colder areas like the arctic and the alpine.
• Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) are widespread in alpine lakes
• ie. DDT, PCBs, toxaphene
  
  • things that although they were removed from use in North America in the 1970s, we are now seeing the legacy effects later on bc they tend to be stored in the snowpack and glaciers and now we’re seeing more melting of these glaciers and stores, they’re running off into the lake systems.
• Toxins are stored in snowpack and glaciers and runoff into lakes.

Question 101

What is the Grasshopper Effect?

Answer 101

The Grasshopper Effect [ POPs (persistent organic pollutants) ]
POPs are really highly volatile so they increase into the atmosphere, travel for a while and then condense into cold areas such as the alpine
Bow Lake, Banff National Park

• Is an example of The Grasshopper Effect
• It’s actually very highly contaminated by this effect
• 73% of the input water is from glaciers
• Glacial inputs have 29% higher POP concentrations than valley streams
• Melting ice layers from 1950s-1990s
  
  • aka before POPs were banned → so we’re still seeing the legacy effects of these toxin inputs on the lakes we’re in now

Question 102

What is the threat of bioaccumulation on alpine lakes?

Answer 102

• The idea of the gradual buildup of pollutants as you’re moving up the food chain.
• eg. the phytoplankton → grazers such as daphnia → they can potentially be eaten by fish or the top predators which are the anthropods or the gammarus species.
• Bioaccumulates higher concentrations at higher elevation (Gammarus spp).