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Vegetation of the Polar Zone

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Global Vegetation

Abstract

The polar tundra occurs almost exclusively in the Arctic region. In Antarctica, there are only two flowering plant species, as opposed to just over 2,000 in the Arctic, and in addition about 1,800 cryptogam species. The geographical distribution of the flora of the Arctic is closely connected to the vegetation history in the Pleistocene, and it shows phylogenetic relationships to the flora of the nemoral and boreal high mountains. The plant life forms are similar to those of the alpine flora, and small-scale mosaics on cryo-disturbed soils are characteristic.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. TUM School of Life Sciences, The Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany

    Jörg S. Pfadenhauer

  2. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Frank A. Klötzli

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Pfadenhauer, J.S., Klötzli, F.A. (2020). Vegetation of the Polar Zone. In: Global Vegetation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49860-3_14

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