Plants in Atqasuk

Guest

Does the variation in the plants between Barrow and Atqasuk have anything to do with how they are located?

Joined: 23 Mar 2004 Posts: 74 Location: Barrow, AK

Hana
I have two ideas to explain the difference between the tundra plants between Atqasuk and Barrow.
First, Barrow is much nearer to the north pole and to the water (Arctic Ocean), so it would tend to be colder and the growing season is slightly shorter. Some of the plants that I have seen here in Atqasuk are the same plants that I see in Barrow, they are just blooming already. So I am assuming that the ones in Barrow will be blooming in the next week or so. I often have noticed the same thing at home when I travel to my parent's house in Olympia that many flowers there have already finished blooming when they have only just started in Skagit County. So going north and south can change the times that such things begin.
Second, the tundra area around Atqasuk seems much drier than that directly around Barrow (at least the area that we tramp through at BEO). Instead of soggy moss and mud, it is a bit more clumpy and grassy. There is a river here in Atqasuk and the landscape is a little bit more rolling, so the drainage appears to be a bit better or at least more concentrated. There appears to be a greater variety of plants that live in drier earth, rather than the ones that mostly live in boggy ground, though I have not done any actual counting of plant types. The abundance of various flowering plants, that I have not yet seen in Barrow, certainly makes it prettier to walk through.
I have uploaded some pictures of the flowers in Atqasuk to the Photo Album for you to see.
http://archive.arcus.org/TREC/phpbb/album_cat.php?cat_id=1