Global ecosystem typology

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T6.2 Polar/alpine cliffs, screes, outcrops and lava flows

Biome: T6. Polar/alpine (cryogenic) biome

Contributors:
(texts)

Polar-alpine rocky outcrops occur in permanently ice-free areas of polar regions and high mountains. Productivity and biomass are limited by extreme cold, rocky substrate and strong winds. Algae, lichens, mosses and bacteria support a short and simple foodweb in the summer months, with cold-tolerant invertebrates such as tardigrades. Some rocky sites provide nesting sites for birds in summer. Substrate weathering and guano are major nutrient inputs. These systems are periodically disturbed as accumulated snow and ice collapses down steep slopes.

Key Features

Environments free of permanent ice where extreme cold, winds, skeletal substrates and periodic mass movement limit biota to cryptogams, invertebrates and microorganisms, nesting birds may occur..

Overview of distribution

Permanently ice-free areas of Antarctica,  Greenland, the Arctic Circle, and high mountains in the western  Americas, central Asia, Europe, Africa and New Zealand..

Profile versions

Main references

Selected references for this functional group:

  • Chown SL, Clarke A, Fraser CI, Cary SC, Moon KL, McGeoch MA (2015) The changing form of Antarctic Biodiversity Nature 522: 431-438

  • Convey P, Stevens PI (2007) Antarctic Biodiversity Science 317: 1877-1878 DOI:10.1126/science.1147261

Diagrammatic assembly model

Diagrammatic assembly model of T6.2 Polar/alpine cliffs, screes, outcrops and lava flows. See general notes on diagrams. Open image full size.

Maps

Maps are indicative of global distribution patterns are not intended to represent fine-scale patterns. The maps show areas of the world containing major (coloured red) or minor occurrences (coloured yellow) of each ecosystem functional group. See general notes on maps.

There are 2 alternative versions of the indicative map for this functional group, please compare description and sources below.

T6.2.IM.alt_v2.0

Datasets

  • GLIMS-2007
  • CAVM-2019
  • EarthEnv-LandCover-v1.0
  • GeoNames-2020
  • GLCC-IGBP-2000
  • GLIMS-2007
  • Antartica-LC-2000

Map references

  • Martha K. Raynolds, Donald A. Walker, Andrew Balser, Christian Bay, Mitch Campbell, Mikhail M. Cherosov, Fred J.A. Daniëls, Pernille Bronken Eidesen, Ksenia A. Ermokhina, Gerald V. Frost, Birgit Jedrzejek, M. Torre Jorgenson, Blair E. Kennedy, Sergei S. Kholod, Igor A. Lavrinenko, Olga V. Lavrinenko, Borgþór Magnússon, Nadezhda V. Matveyeva, Sigmar Metúsalemsson, Lennart Nilsen, Ian Olthof, Igor N. Pospelov, Elena B. Pospelova, Darren Pouliot, Vladimir Razzhivin, Gabriela Schaepman-Strub, Jozef Šibík, Mikhail Yu. Telyatnikov, Elena Troeva (2019) A raster version of the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map (CAVM) Remote Sensing of Environment 232: 111297, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2019.111297.

  • Tuanmu, M.-N. and W. Jetz (2014) A global 1-km consensus land-cover product for biodiversity and ecosystem modeling Global Ecology and Biogeography 23(9):1031–1045 DOI:10.1111/geb.12182

  • GeoNames (2020) The GeoNames geographical database [https://www.geonames.org] Accessed in Feb 2020

  • Loveland, T.R., Reed, B.C., Brown, J.F., Ohlen, D.O., Zhu, J, Yang, L., and Merchant, J.W. (2000) Development of a Global Land Cover Characteristics Database and IGBP DISCover from 1-km AVHRR Data International Journal of Remote Sensing v. 21, no. 6/7, p. 1303-1330 DOI:10.1080/014311600210191

  • Raup, B.H.; A. Racoviteanu; S.J.S. Khalsa; C. Helm; R. Armstrong; Y. Arnaud (2007) The GLIMS Geospatial Glacier Database: a New Tool for Studying Glacier Change Global and Planetary Change 56:101–110 DOI:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2006.07.018

  • Hui, F., J. Kang, Y. Liu, X. Cheng, P. Gong, F. Wang, Z. Li, Y. Ye, and Z. Guo. 2017. AntarcticaLC2000: The new Antarctic land cover database for the year 2000. SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences 60: 686-696. doi: 10.1007/s11430-016-0029-2.

T6.2.web.alt_v2.0

Known locations of prominent ice-free rock in glacial and alpine environments were selected from global geographical gazeteers (GeoNames 2020), glacier inventories (Raup et al 2007; GLIMS and NSIDC 2005-2018) and the Antarctic Land Cover map for 2000 (Hui et al. 2017). Further areas with mixed occurrence of barren and snow/ice cover were identified from the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map (Raynolds et al. 2019), the USGS EROS LandCover GLCCDB, version 2 (Loveland et al. 2000) and a 1km consensus land-cover map (Tuanmu et al. 2014). A composite map was created at 30 arc seconds spatial resolution in geographic projection, occurrences were then aggregated to half degree cells. Cells containing at least one known location were designated as major occurrences, while those mapped as mixed barren and snow/ice cover were designated as minor occurrences if snow/ice covered at least 2.5% of the cell area. Open image full size.

Datasets

  • EarthEnv-LandCover-v1.0
  • GLCC-IGBP-2000
  • GLIMS-2007
  • CAVM-2019
  • Antartica-LC-2000
  • GLIMS-2007
  • GeoNames-2020

Map references

  • Tuanmu, M.-N. and W. Jetz (2014) A global 1-km consensus land-cover product for biodiversity and ecosystem modeling Global Ecology and Biogeography 23(9):1031–1045 DOI:10.1111/geb.12182

  • Loveland, T.R., Reed, B.C., Brown, J.F., Ohlen, D.O., Zhu, J, Yang, L., and Merchant, J.W. (2000) Development of a Global Land Cover Characteristics Database and IGBP DISCover from 1-km AVHRR Data International Journal of Remote Sensing v. 21, no. 6/7, p. 1303-1330 DOI:10.1080/014311600210191

  • Martha K. Raynolds, Donald A. Walker, Andrew Balser, Christian Bay, Mitch Campbell, Mikhail M. Cherosov, Fred J.A. Daniëls, Pernille Bronken Eidesen, Ksenia A. Ermokhina, Gerald V. Frost, Birgit Jedrzejek, M. Torre Jorgenson, Blair E. Kennedy, Sergei S. Kholod, Igor A. Lavrinenko, Olga V. Lavrinenko, Borgþór Magnússon, Nadezhda V. Matveyeva, Sigmar Metúsalemsson, Lennart Nilsen, Ian Olthof, Igor N. Pospelov, Elena B. Pospelova, Darren Pouliot, Vladimir Razzhivin, Gabriela Schaepman-Strub, Jozef Šibík, Mikhail Yu. Telyatnikov, Elena Troeva (2019) A raster version of the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map (CAVM) Remote Sensing of Environment 232: 111297, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2019.111297.

  • Hui, F., J. Kang, Y. Liu, X. Cheng, P. Gong, F. Wang, Z. Li, Y. Ye, and Z. Guo. 2017. AntarcticaLC2000: The new Antarctic land cover database for the year 2000. SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences 60: 686-696. doi: 10.1007/s11430-016-0029-2.

  • Raup, B.H.; A. Racoviteanu; S.J.S. Khalsa; C. Helm; R. Armstrong; Y. Arnaud (2007) The GLIMS Geospatial Glacier Database: a New Tool for Studying Glacier Change Global and Planetary Change 56:101–110 DOI:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2006.07.018

  • GeoNames (2020) The GeoNames geographical database [https://www.geonames.org] Accessed in Feb 2020

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