Alpine ecosystems australia

Australia's Alps are very small by comparison to world standards. The South American Andes rise to 6000 metres and the Himalayas in central Asia to 8000 metres. By contrast, many Mountains in the Australian Alps are not much higher than 2000 metres including Australia's highest mountain, Mt Kosciuszko in NSW.

The term 'alpine' is used in a general way to describe any high mountain areas. The strict definition is 'the area above a certain altitude that is treeless due to the inability of trees to grow at low temperatures'. The tree line (altitude at which trees cut out) is generally at about 1400 metres in Australia. However, the term 'Australian Alps' geerally includes the montane and tableland zones that lie below the alpine and subalpine zones.

Living on the timbered slopes and open plateaus of the Alps are more than 40 species of native mammals, around 200 of birds, 30 of reptiles, 15 of frogs, 14 kinds of native fish and many species of invertebrates.

Climate: mean midsummer temperatures greater than 10°C, very high precipitation, snow persists for 1 month or more.

The Alps are have an extremely short growing season following a long, cold and snowy winter-spring period Most species are dormant in winter, then rapidly, flower and set seed during the short growing season of 4-5 months from November to April.

Although most of the plant species of the alpine area are recognisably similar to those species growing in other areas of Australia, they have developed special characteristics in response to a particular combination of cool climate, high precipitation and mountainous terrain.

A particular vegetation community adapted to these conditions, the short alpine herbfield or snowpatch community generally grows below snowpatches where the environment is much colder than elsewhere. Some of the plants of the snowpatch communities such as the Marsh Marigold (Caltha intraloba) have adapted to grow beneath the melting snow. Sometimes they actually flower beneath the snow.

Vegetation communities: herbfields, grasslands, bogs and fens, heathlands.

Barlow, B.A. (1986), Flora and fauna of alpine Australasia, ages and origins. CSIRO.

Some topics in this essay:
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