The Ecology of Antarctica reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Ecology of Antarctica

Antarctica is one of eight terrestrial ecozones. The ecozone includes Antarctica and several island groups in the southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The continent of Antarctica has been too cold and dry to support virtually any vascular plants for millions of years, and its flora presently consists of around 250 lichens, 100 mosses, 25-30 liverworts, and around 700 terrestrial and aquatic algal species, which live on the areas of exposed rock and soil around the shore of the continent. Antarctica's two flowering plant species, the Antarctic hair grass (Deschampsia antarctica) and Antarctic pearlwort (Colobanthus quitensis), are found on the northern and western parts of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Four tundra ecoregions are recognized:

• Marielandia Antarctic tundra (includes the Antarctic Peninsula)
• Maudlandia Antarctic desert (eastern Antarctica)
• Scotia Sea Islands tundra (South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, South Orkney Islands, South Shetland Islands, Bouvet Island
• Southern Indian Ocean Islands tundra (Crozet Islands, Prince Edward and Marion Islands, Heard Island, Kerguelen Islands, McDonald Islands)

Millions of years ago, Antarctica was warmer and wetter, and supported the Antarctic flora, including forests of podocarps and southern beech. The Antarctic flora has died out in Antarctica, and the Antarctic flora is an important component of the flora of southern Neotropic (South America) and Australasia.

This is the "Ecology of Antarctica" reference article from the English Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.