Vegetation & Ecosystem - Alpine Meadow

Vegetation & Ecosystem

Alpine Meadow

The alpine meadow ecosystem lies between the snowline and the first trees. It is a harsh land of rock escarpments and scree slopes that is snowbound for more than six months of the year, a landscape that appears lifeless only until spring conjures that delicate blooms of cushion plants from the stony ground. The alpine meadows are sparsely populated with animals by lower floor standards, but one creature that they do sustain is well adapted to the conditions. The Tibetan marmot, a plump sturdy rodent, survives by sleeping through most of the winter months. One Chinese name for marmot translates as ‘haystacker’, an allusion to the animal’s habit of gathering food plants and piling them in heaps to dry in the sun. The small haystackers are eventually carried underground and provide vital nourishment during the cold, hard days of winter. A family group of up to six animals hibernates together in a special hibernation chamber, waking every three or four weeks to defaecate, urinate and feed on their stored food.

Winter can be more of a problem for insects living on these stark peaks. They labour under a double disadvantage when it comes to cold weather; they are cold blooded and quickly take on the temperature of their surroundings; and being so small, their surface to volume ratio is very high and any heat they may have is rapidly lost to the atmosphere. Most insects either migrate or burrow deep beneath the trunks of trees, or underground, to escape the lethal cold. A few produce a special anti-freeze which prevents their tissues from freezing.

Burrowing beneath the soil is another strategy for avoiding the cold. In spring the Chinese ‘grass-worm’ can be seen as a thin stalk pushing its way out of the earth after a long winter ‘hibernation’. Strangely, at the base of the stalk, some 15cm below ground, is a dead caterpillar. The secret of this odd amalgam is a fungus which infects the caterpillar in spring, producing fungal strands that drive deep into the tissue of the unfortunate insect. In the autumn, when the insect burrows beneath the surface to pupate, the fungus attacks in earnest. It kills the hapless caterpillar and puts the insect’s tissues to its own use. The following spring, a fungal shoot bursts from the top of the dead caterpillar’s haed and grows rapidly into the long, characteristic stalk which, once clear of the earth, releases its spores to the wind to begin the cycle anew. The grass-worm is important in Chinese medicine; cooked in chicken stew, it is said to be a great restorative. Wild plants and animals feature prominently in Chinese medicine and many of these, such as the musk deer and black bear, are found in the forest zones below the alpine meadow.