La traduction française de cette page n'est pas disponible.When you picture the Arctic terrain, you imagine rolling ice sheets and
sky-high glaciers, right?
Well, ever thought about what happens in the summer when all that begins
to melt and some of the ground is left bare?
Lake in Dundas Harbour
Of course, there are no trees up here because it is frozen for half the
year. This is because the period where the temperatures are warm enough
to allow photosynthesis to be strong enough to produce plants is very
short. This means plants can’t afford to grow tall, but have to
concentrate on growing out roots and leaves for storage and producing
energy.
The tundra of the Arctic includes shrubs, herbs, mosses and lichens.
These plants have many difficulties to survive, one of the main being
the cold. They have to be able to lay dormant under the deep cold of
Winter, and survive the periods of freezing spells in the Summer when
the plants are growing rather than lying dormant.
Moss Campion
For animals such as Polar bears, Summer is a dreadful time of the year,
when the sea ice has broken up they have to come inland to the meadows
and snooze the Summer away, eating eider ducks and any ripe berries they
can come across. That sounds a little like luxury, doesn’t it? You have
to remember that Polar bears are adapted to harsh Winter conditions and
don’t turn brown like Arctic foxes in the Summer and so become very
lean, and are at the peak of their hunger. This makes them very
dangerous as they will attack if provoked. Now you can understand why we
were particularly cautious at our sight of the bear the other day.
