Avati: Discovering Arctic Ecology
32
Avati: Discovering Arctic Ecology
32Hardcover(English ed.)
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781927095133 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Inhabit Media |
| Publication date: | 05/31/2013 |
| Edition description: | English ed. |
| Pages: | 32 |
| Product dimensions: | 10.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.40(d) |
| Age Range: | 4 - 8 Years |
About the Author
Mia Pelletier grew up exploring the lakes and forests of the Canadian Shield. Drawn to shorelines and wild places, Mia studied ecology and lived in California and the Magdalen Islands before moving to Baffin Island, Nunavut, in 2010. In Nunavut, she works with Arctic seabirds and with Inuit on the co-management of protected areas. Mia enjoys exploring the Arctic tundra and learning about the fascinating plants, animals, and people that call this region home. Sara Otterstätter is a freelance artist and illustrator.
Read an Excerpt
Avati
Discovering Arctic Ecology
By Mia Pelletier, Sara Otterstätter
Inhabit Media Inc.
Copyright © 2012 Mia PelletierAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-927095-41-6
CHAPTER 1
While the Arctic appears as a single place on a map, it is a vast land that changes endlessly as you travel across it — from frozen ocean, icy blue glaciers, and towering mountains to green river valleys, boggy wetlands, and rolling hills. The boundaries of this region are defined in many ways. Some describe the Arctic as the part of the world that lies within the Arctic Circle. This imaginary line circles the globe at the top of the world to mark the place where the sun does not fully rise or set for at least one day of the year. Trace your finger along this line, and you will pass through the northern parts of several countries around the world, including the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut in northern Canada.
The Arctic can also be described as the part of the world that lies above the "treeline." As you travel north, trees become smaller and smaller, then seem to vanish entirely as it becomes too difficult for trees to grow. The treeline rises and falls as it winds across the map of northern Canada, and onwards around the globe.
Yet for the Arctic peoples that have lived in this region for thousands of years, the Arctic is simply home. Avati means "environment" in Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit. While many of the plants and animals found in this book can be found in other parts of the Arctic, we'll explore the landscapes of Nunavut, the part of the Arctic that means "our land."
The name "Arctic" comes from the Greek word for bear, "arktos." It describes the constellations of stars that you can see in the northern night sky. See their shapes in the starry sky? These are Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the Great Bear and the Little Bear. These stars shine over the Arctic, the icy wilderness of treeless tundra and frozen ocean that lies at the top of the world.
From a distance, this bare, windswept landscape appears empty. Covered by ice and snow for much of the year, the Arctic winter is long, cold, and dark. Yet spring and summer bring an explosion of life to the Arctic. As the ice retreats from the land and sea, great flocks of birds arrive from the south, the ocean blooms with life, and tundra plants reach for the sun with new leaves, shoots, and berries.
Let's explore the Arctic through the seasons. We'll see that the Arctic is not empty at all, but contains many unique habitats, and plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth. From the millions of tiny insects to the great polar bear, each species is an important part of the Arctic web of life, and all species depend on one another in the struggle to survive.
Here at the floe edge, landfast ice meets open ocean and mist rises in the chilly air. The spring sun has just risen high enough for its light to penetrate the seawater. It shines on the underside of the sea ice, illuminating an underwater garden of tiny algae. Much of the algae that live in the pores and channels on the underside of the ice are made up of diatoms. These algae use energy from the sun to grow so thick that they turn the ice a golden brown. Small, shrimp-like animals called amphipods graze on this rich food. As amphipods eat the ice algae, Arctic cod use their jutting lower jaws to scoop up the amphipods from this hanging garden.
Splash! Gulp! Arctic cod are an important food for many marine mammals, including these ringed seals. Seabirds that have travelled from near and far to the Arctic to nest are also hungry for fish. Thick-billed murres gather in great numbers at the floe edge to dive for the fish they need to build up energy to lay and incubate their eggs. An Inuit hunter has also come to the floe edge to hunt. He listens for the wet breath of narwhals as they glide through the water with their long ivory tusks.
The sheer cliffs of the Arctic island coasts offer many nesting places for seabirds. After filling their bellies with fish, thick-billed murres head for the sea cliffs to lay their eggs. "Aoorrr, aoorr!" Murres join the crowded colony, one by one, until the sound of their calls is a continuous roar. Each murre finds its place on a narrow rock ledge to lay its one beautiful, speckled turquoise egg. Pointed on one end and round on the other, their eggs are specially shaped to roll in a circle so they don't fall off the cliff. Hungry glaucous gulls patrol the cliffs like sentries on a castle wall, watching for eggs to steal and eat, while an Arctic fox sniffs the beach below, searching for dropped eggs. Murre droppings provide rich fertilizer for the growth of jewel lichen, which paints the rocks beneath the nest cliffs a brilliant orange.
In early summer, the ocean below the cliffs may still be frozen, and murres must fly out across the sea ice to dive for food in a pool of open water called a polynya. Here, wind and currents keep a patch of ocean free of ice, and upwelling brings nutrients up from the ocean floor. Polynyas are a refuge in the ice for many marine animals throughout the winter, and now they fill with life. Tiny, drifting plants called phytoplankton feed small, drifting animals called zooplankton that, in turn, feed fish and seabirds. Shrimplike krill swim through the water feeding on plankton and provide food for larger animals, like whales. The water teems with life as murres join the northern fulmars and black-legged kittiwakes that have also come to feast. Some murres fly as far as 100 km from their nest cliffs to fish.
Murres are just one of many species that use the Arctic as a nursery. From all over the world, birds travel to the Arctic in the millions to raise their young. The most incredible journey is that of the Arctic tern, which travels 70,000 km round trip from Antarctica to nest in the Arctic every year. This is the longest migration of any bird on Earth.
"Kek-kek-kek!" Arctic terns nest on the ground in noisy colonies, plunge-diving for fish and marine invertebrates in the nearby ocean. Fierce defenders of their eggs, terns will aggressively attack any predator that enters the colony. To benefit from this protection, a female red phalarope, in her stunning summer feathers, has laid her speckled eggs close by. She spins in circles on a nearby pond, making a whirlpool that traps aquatic bugs, which she plucks from the water and eats. Enjoying one last meal, she leaves her mate behind to incubate her eggs. His less colourful feathers blend in so perfectly with the tundra that he cannot be seen.
"Feee-leerrr!" The dark shadow of a parasitic jaeger flies over the colony. Often feeding on food stolen from other birds, this stealthy pirate swoops quickly, knocking a fish from the bill of a flying tern and catching it in the air before it falls. Dropped fish and bird droppings nourish the soil beneath the colony, where a thick mat of lush, green moss grows.
"Ah-WOO-oo!" Just over the hill, the ghostly calls of a raft of common eiders drift in from the ocean where they've been diving for mussels. Having stored up lots of fat, female eiders build their nests upon the ground. Lining their nest bowls with soft, grey down plucked from their breasts, eiders keep their eggs snug and warm beneath them. Eiderdown is so warm that it is collected by Inuit from nests across the tundra. To spot nesting eiders, you must look carefully. The eiders' mottled brown feathers camouflage them so well that they seem to disappear into the tundra. Even as a light snow falls and dusts their wings, the hens will not leave their nests, nor will they eat for the twenty-five days it takes for their eggs to hatch. As they wait, the hens survive on fat stores in their bodies.
This year there are many lemmings on the tundra, and the eider colony is protected from some predators by the pair of snowy owls nesting nearby. As lemmings line their underground nests with soft feathers and grasses to raise their many litters, the male owl hunts for lemmings to feed his mate and chases away the Arctic foxes that come looking for eggs. Arctic foxes love to hunt lemmings, but they are also excellent egg thieves. Foxes bury the eggs they steal in caches underground. In the dark and hungry days of winter, foxes return to these spots to dig up their secret stashes.
As the summer sun climbs higher, the surface of the tundra soil begins to thaw. But not far beneath the surface lies a permanently frozen layer of earth called the permafrost. Permafrost prevents water from soaking deep into the ground, so snowmelt pools in every hollow on the tundra. Mosquito eggs, laid the year before, hatch into larvae in puddles, ponds, and lakes. The tiny larvae feed on plankton and grow quickly.
Water and mud are home to many edible invertebrates that are important foods for birds, especially the larvae of midges and crane flies. From all over the world, millions of shorebirds have flocked to the Arctic to feast on insects and raise their young. They lay their eggs on bare ground, or in a simple nest lined with lichen, moss, or grass that blends in with the tundra. Their camouflaged feathers and cryptic eggs make shorebird nests very difficult to see. Can you see them? "Prreep! Prreep!" A least sandpiper picks his way along the soggy shore, probing the mud for tasty bugs. Splash! A long-tailed duck dives to capture aquatic insects, using his wings to propel him deep into the pond.
BzzzzZZZZZZ. The quiet of the tundra is broken as mosquito larvae grow into adults and the air fills with the hum of buzzing biters. While mosquitoes provide food for many birds, female mosquitoes can detect an animal's breath in the air and follow the scent to reach their own warm meal. The barren ground caribou that graze on the first green shoots of summer are nearly driven mad by the buzzing swarms. They walk into the wind and rest on the last few patches of snow to try to avoid the mosquitoes' hungry bites.
In the far North, the Peary caribou have exchanged their thick, white winter coats for short, dark summer coats. Their large, crescent-shaped hooves make excellent paddles, which propel them easily across rivers and between Arctic islands as they roam in search of nutritious plants. While Peary caribou eat many kinds of grasses, sedges, lichen, and mushrooms, their favourite plant, the purple saxifrage, now fills the landscape with colour. Their muzzles are stained purple from grazing as they build up fat reserves for the coming winter.
The Peary caribou's keen sense of smell helps them find food, but they have not sensed the pair of Arctic wolves that has been silently tracking the herd. The wolves have watched patiently with their golden eyes, looking for caribou that are young, old, or weak. The herd spots the wolves as they silently approach and makes a dash for higher ground. Caribou can often outrun wolves, but one young calf is not fast enough to keep up. The long-legged wolves bound across the tundra, closing in. In the distance, a wolverine has also been following the herd. When the wolves have filled their bellies with meat, the wolverine will feed on the remains of the carcass left behind.
Now it is high summer on the tundra and the sun circles the sky but never sets. Flower buds, which have waited all winter beneath the snow, unfold in the light. To escape strong Arctic winds, many plants grow tight to the ground in dense cushions. Dark leaves and stems absorb the sun's heat, and fine hairs trap insulating air. Some Arctic plants, like Arctic poppies, have flowers that turn to follow the sun as it moves across the sky. These flowers offer a warm shelter for insects that come to sunbathe inside them.
Insects are an essential part of Arctic ecosystems, as they break down plant and animal material and pollinate flowers. They, too, have many ways of keeping warm during the cool Arctic summer. Dark, hairy bodies absorb heat from the sun and trap a layer of insulating air. Dark butterflies can use their wings to collect the sun's warmth, while white butterflies may use their wings like mirrors to focus sunrays on parts of their bodies. Bumblebees shiver their flight muscles to keep warm.
The tundra teems with insect life. The luminous wings of Arctic blue butterflies shine as they dine on flower nectar. Aphids climb through the saxifrage, feeding on leaf juice. A carrion beetle, with its keen sense of smell, searches the air for the scent of an animal carcass. Wolf spiders hunt for insects on the ground, nearly invisible in their camouflage coats, while sheet web spiders spin webs into silky balloons and float away on the wind.
The plants of the summer tundra provide a lush feast for Arctic herbivores, which spread seeds and nourish plants with their droppings. All summer, muskoxen have roamed the tundra feeding on willows, grasses, and herbs, and they have built up a thick layer of fat for the coming winter. Crowned with large, curved horns and wearing a thick woolly coat, Inuit call muskoxen "oomingmak," meaning "the bearded one." Their long, shaggy hair snags on plants and is stolen underground by lemmings to line the nests of their last summer litters. Smash! Clang! The air fills with the crash of the muskoxen's hefty horns as bulls challenge each other for the right to mate with females. Beneath their fleecy coats, they have already grown a thick layer of qiviut wool in preparation for the coming cold. Grown every autumn and shed each spring, this soft wool is very warm, and will be gathered by Inuit from across the tundra in the coming seasons.
Snow geese and tundra swans have also raised their young on Arctic plants. Snow geese graze damp soils for tasty sedges, seeds, and the leaves and roots of aquatic plants, while tundra swans nibble on plants that grow in shallow water. Young tundra swans, called cygnets, can grow up to twenty-eight times their hatch weight during the short Arctic summer. They must be fully feathered to fly by summer's end, when swans leave for larger lakes that freeze more slowly. Soon, Arctic char will also make their way to Arctic lakes. After feeding in the ocean all summer, their brilliant orange and silver scales shine as they wind up Arctic rivers to winter in the depths of tundra lakes. Inuit fishermen gather at the mouths of Arctic rivers to catch these sparkling fish as they leave the ocean for their wintering lakes.
As summer fades, the last of the shorebirds that have raised their young on the tundra fly south along the ocean coasts. The Arctic fills with the sound of beating wings and the cries of geese, ducks, swans, and cranes as huge flocks take to the skies like long arrows pointing south. The low mats of plants that have fed caribou, Arctic hares, and ptarmigans turn a brilliant red. Crowberries, cloudberries, blueberries, and cranberries grow fat and ripe. The last feathery plumes of mountain avens unwind, releasing their seeds into the wind.
Seeds are also spread by Arctic ground squirrels, lemmings, voles, and seed-eating birds. "Twee-turee-twee-turiwee!" The musical call of a snow bunting can be heard as he feasts on summer seeds. "Tek! Tek!" A northern wheatear forages on the ground for berries and pounces from his perch to catch one last fly. While some Arctic insects will survive the winter frozen in the soil, many insects pass the winter in sheltered spots inside plant clumps or under stones.
Each day, the autumn sun sinks a little lower in the sky. As its warmth leaves the Arctic landscape, only the hardiest animals remain to face the coming cold. Winter comes quickly. First ponds, then lakes and rivers, begin to freeze. In the growing dark, a light snow begins to fall.
In the dark of winter, the shimmering aurora winds through the sky like a green river of fire. Although little snow falls, the snow that is on the ground is endlessly rearranged by the wind. The patterns formed by wind and snow are so numerous that Inuit have given them many names. Kalutoqaniq is snow that looks like drifting dunes of sand, while uqaluraq is a pointed drift that looks like a tongue.
Many Arctic animals change the colour of their coats to disappear against the snow. The lush, white coats of ermines, Arctic hares, and Arctic foxes allow them to move secretly through the winter landscape in perfect camouflage. Collared lemmings also turn pale white, and grow long snow-scraper claws that help them dig tunnels through the snow. Their tunnels wind like hidden highways as they pass the winter nibbling on Arctic willow bark. But snow won't hide them from the ermine, fox, or snowy owl that listen for lemmings above the snow. Special circles of feathers direct the slightest sound of movement to the owl's ears as it hovers over the frozen drifts.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Avati by Mia Pelletier, Sara Otterstätter. Copyright © 2012 Mia Pelletier. Excerpted by permission of Inhabit Media Inc..
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