ALPINE ZONE

The altitudinal zone between the tree line/limit and the upper limit of plant life in mountain regions. Although the alpine zone is a geoecological zone with distinctive geomorphology as well as ecology, it is commonly divided into three altitudinal belts or subzones, primarily on the basis of differences in the vegetation. In the Scandinavian mountains, the low-alpine belt, also known as the willow belt, has a more-or-less complete cover of mainly dwarf-shrub– dominated communities and alpine mires together with some tall-herb communities. In the mid-alpine belt, increasingly severe climatic conditions, more extensive snowbeds and a shorter growing season lead to a mosaic of graminoidheath communities alternating with late-snowbed communities. In the high-alpine belt, low-growing perennial forbs, which occur only in favourable habitats, predominate with lichens and bryophytes. Each of these belts is of the order of a few hundred metres wide. A more complex scheme is applied to the European Alps, as illustrated in the Figure, and this recognises a distinct nival zone above the alpine zone. Especially in the low-alpine zone, alpine grassland (alps in the Alps; sætre grassland in Norway) may have developed in response to a long history of seasonal grazing by domesticated animals involved in transhumance systems.

Alpine zoneVegetational and related environmental terms associated with the alpine zone and adjacent altitudinal zones in the European Alps (Ellenberg, 1988).

[See alsoaeolian zone, afro-alpine zone, mountain regions: environmental change and human impact, tree line/limit, zonation]