Alpine fauna: habitats and adaptations

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ANIMALS

Selected mountains

Mountains are a source of great biodiversity. However, because of their different formation, their different geomorphological histories and their different colonisation, each region varies greatly in the number and composition of species it harbours.

The habitats in the alpine zone are manifold and different strategies and adaptations have evolved to guarantee the animals' survival in the alpine environment.

It would be nearly impossible to give an overview of the fauna in all the mountain regions of the world. Therefore we concentrated on regions that are well studied and can provide good and comparable data. We will focus on the European Alps, the Ethiopian Highlands and the Snowy Mountains of Australia. Detailed lists to compare species in mountains all over the world are only available for mammals and birds. The knowledge of invertebrate occurrence is very poor. For reasons of comparability we therefore put the focus in this unit on mammal species.

Characteristics of the selected mountains
	European Alps	Ethiopian Highlands	Snowy Mountains of Australia
Geology	Tertiary folded mountains; variable soils. (75 mio years ago, formation still in progress)	Tertiary lava intrusion; mostly homogeneous soils. (75 mio years ago)	Slow, gradual uplift. Great variation in soils. (50 -60 mio years ago)
Ice age	strongly formative; covered nearly the entire range	small glaciers; formation of moraines hardly distinct; treeline lowered by ca. 1000 m	small glaciers; parts of the Snowy Mountains above 1500 m covered by ice several times.
Highest peak	4807 m Mt. Blanc	4620 m Ras Dashen	2228 m Mt. Kosciusko
Treeline	1500 - 2300 m	3300 - 3600 m	1600 - 1900
Snow cover	6 - 8 months	no snow cover	4 - 8 months
Mean annual Temperature	< 5 °C	> 10 °C	< 10 °C
Vegetation period	ca. 3 months	12 months; when precipitation sufficient	4 - 5 months
Common habitats	grassland; boulders; scree; rock faces of different slopes	grassland; open heather stands; few boulders and screes; vertical rock faces	grassland; boulders; scree; high plateaus with deep gorges
Open water	many streams; ponds; alpine lakes	many streams; hardly any lentic waters	streams; ponds; alpine lakes
Region	palearctic region	afro-tropical region	australasian region

29 August 2011 © ALPECOLe 2002-2007