The Tundra is the coldest of all biomes. It has extremely low temperatures and little precipitation. Animals are adapted to handle long, cold winters and to breed and raise young quickly in the summer. Animals such as mammals and birds also have additional insulation from fat. Many animals hibernate during the winter because food is not abundant. Another alternative is to migrate south in the Winter, like birds do. Reptiles and amphibians are few or absent because of the extremely cold temperatures. Because of constant immigration and emigration, the population continually oscillates.
There are about 1,700 kinds of plants in the arctic and subarctic, and these include:
- low shrubs, sedges, reindeer mosses, liverworts, and grasses
- 400 varieties of flowers
- crustose and foliose lichen