Repeated footsteps often destroy tundra plants, leaving exposed soil to blow away, and recovery may take hundreds of years.Alpine meadows form where sediments from the weathering of rocks has produced soils well-developed enough to support grasses and sedges.
The elevation at which one habitat changes to another varies across the globe, particularly by latitude.
Montane forests occur between the submontane zone and the subalpine zone. As a consequence, alpine vegetation is close to the ground and consists mainly of Plants have adapted to the harsh alpine environment.
Above the tree line the ecosystem is called the alpine zone or Climates with biotemperatures below 1.5 °C (35 °F) tend to consist purely of rock and ice.The lower bound of the montane zone may be a "lower timberline" that separates the montane forest from drier Montane forests differ from lowland forests in the same area.Montane forests in temperate climate are typically one of Montane forests outside Europe tend to be more species-rich, because the major mountain chains of Europe are oriented east-west.
The upper limit of montane forests, the tree line, is often marked by a change to hardier species that occur in less dense stands. Montane forests in temperate climate occur in Europe (the Example subalpine zones around the world include the Alpine grasslands and tundra lie above the tree line, in a world of intense radiation, wind, cold, snow, and ice. For example, in the Sierra Nevada of California, the montane forest has dense stands of lodgepole pine and red fir, while the Sierra Nevada subalpine zone contains sparse stands of whitebark pine. The adaptations for survival of drying winds and cold may make tundra vegetation seem very hardy, but in some respects the tundra is very fragile. Alpine grasslands are common enough around the world to be categorized as a The most extensive montane grasslands and shrublands occur in the Where conditions are drier, one finds montane grasslands, savannas, and woodlands, like the One of the typical life zones on mountains is the montane forest: at moderate elevations, the rainfall and temperate climate encourages dense forests to grow.