The Scandinavian Montane Birch forests and grasslands ecoregion, a Palearctic ecoregion of the Alpine tundra and Boreal forest Biomes, located in Norway, Sweden, and Finland. It is one of the terrestrial ecoregions determined and defined by the World Wildlife Fund. [1]
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The ecoregion follows the Scandinavian Mountains, and is mainly located within the borders of Norway and Sweden, as well as the northernmost part of Finland. This is a varied ecoregion, 1,600 km long, with a total area of approximately 243 000 km² (slightly larger than Great Britain).[2]
The largest glaciers on the European mainland are located here, as are Northern Europe's highest mountains and largest mountain plateau. The mountain chain itself creates a rain shadow, and the eastern part of the mountain chain is considerably drier than the western part.
Parts of the ecoregion are located in smaller mountain areas surrounded by lower elevation biomes, as is the case with many coastal mountains in Norway. About one third of the total area is made up by high alpine tundra with very modest vegetation and bare rock, skree, snowfields and glaciers. Another third comprises low alpine tundra with continuous plant cover; dwarf birch and willows up to 1 m tall and grasslands, as well as numerous lakes and bogs. The last third is made up by the adjacent montane birch zone with small (2-5 m) mountain downy birch (Betula pubescens) above the conifer tree line; some stunted spruce and pine are also included, as are many lakes and bogs. This part is regarded as part of the North Boreal vegetation zone by Scandinavian botanists. In the lower elevations, the forests become closed-canopy and mostly belong to the Scandinavian and Russian taiga ecoregion; some of the coastal areas do not have true taiga. In areas outside the range of the spruce, the birch forest dominates also in the middel boreal zone (such as in northern Nordland and north to Tromsø). In these low elevation areas the forest is taller (8-12 m) and denser (closed-canopy), and also include other species, such as aspen, scots pine, grey alder, rowan, goat willow and bird cherry.
The Scandinavian Montane Birch forests and grasslands is one of the Global 200 ecoregions, and is thus regarded as a high priority for conservation.
There are many alpine plant species in this region not found anywhere else in Europe, but often in the Arctic and sometimes in mountain areas in North America. Fauna includes predators like wolverine, brown bear, wolf and red fox. The arctic fox is in danger of extinction in this area, but there are efforts to try to save the species. There are also wild reindeer (only in the mountains in central Norway, domesticated reindeer is much more common). Lemming and hare (lower altitude) are character species for the region. There are approximately 150 musk oxen on Dovrefjell, having been transported from Greenland in the 1930s, as the species were extinct in Scandinavia. There is a rich bird life; most birds are migratory, but some, like the ptarmigan, stay all year.