Northeast Siberian Coastal Tundra

Category: Grassland, Tundra, and Human Biomes.

Geographic Location: Eurasia.

Summary: This land of marshes and permafrost hosts anadromous fish, migratory birds, and reindeer; its marshes and seabeds hold vast amounts of carbon dioxide and methane, both important catalysts of global climate change.

The northeastern Siberian coastal tundra stretches from the eastern Siberia and Laptev Seas along the far-northeastern maritime border of Eurasia just above the Arctic Circle, and extends across the Chukotka Peninsula that borders the Bering Strait just west of Alaska. It is an ecosystem within the larger, Arctic Tundra biome, which extends around the Arctic Circle and includes the far-northern lands of North America and Northern Europe. Similar landscapes can be found in the Antarctic.

Sometimes, the tundra is referred to as a borderland of the larger taiga biome. The Siberian taiga is a vast boreal forest ecosystem that extends 1.5 million square miles (3.9 million square kilometers) across eastern and central Russia. However, both have distinct biological features. The tundra covers nearly one-fifth of Earth’s lands, and is noted for its frigid temperatures and scant precipitation. At its extremes, the landscape becomes a polar desert.

These harsh conditions progressively limit the biodiversity of species and subspecies that can survive exposure at northern climatic extremes. Mats and cushions of mosses, lichens, willows, sedges, grasses, and Arctic poppies populate in a permafrost landscape. In the far northeastern corner of the Siberian tundra, the lands of the Chukotka Peninsula are densely covered with tussock-dwarf shrubs and cotton sedge (Eriophorum vaginatum). Common plant species here also include cotton grass (Eriophorum spp.), sedges (Carex spp.), dryas (Dryas punctata), willows (Salix spp.), crowberry (Empetrum spp.), cranberry (Vaccinium vitis-idea), and mosses.

Biodiversity

Three natural zones—polar desert, tundra, and taiga, or forest tundra—stretch into a vast area of the Russian Arctic and sub-Arctic, encompassing an area of 3.9 million square miles (10 million square kilometers). Roughly 16 ethnic groups in a total human population of approximately 11 million are sparsely scattered in settlements across the region. Reindeer herding, hunting, and fishing are the staples of a subsistence culture thousands of years old. Despite the harshness of the environment, the coastal tundra provides dense habitats for anadromous (fish born in fresh­water that live and grow in the seas) and freshwater fish, summertime migratory birds traveling along the Nearctic and Palearctic flyways, and herds of migrating wild reindeer (Rangifer tarandus). All of these provide important resources for indigenous subsistence cultures throughout Siberia—and prey for carnivores.

The polar bear is a key mammal whose survival is endangered by rapidly escalating climatic change that is adversely affecting its habitat. Other endangered species include the Arctic fox, caribou, rockhopper penguin, musk ox, and petrel. Among the fish in the region’s rivers are perch, pikes, char, carp, and salmon.

The coastal tundra has an close relationship with the bodies of water that feed its treeless landscape; all of the central Asian rivers eventually flow northward out across the coast before flowing into the Arctic Ocean. Important rivers that migrate across the tundra include the Yana, Khroma, Indigirka, Alazeya, and Kolyma. This combined catchment area constitutes some of the most productive wetlands in Russia. Steller’s and spectacled eiders (Polysticta stelleri and Somateria fischeri) are two of myriad waterfowl species that breed in this fertile marshland. Among the many others are red-throated loon (Gavia stellata), northern fulmar (Fulmarus glacialis), great white pelican (Pelecanus onocrotalus), northern gannet (Morus bassanus), and gray heron (Ardea cinerea).

Environmental Concerns

Siberia’s rivers are critical pathways that carry toxic effluents out into the waters of the Arctic Circle. Researchers recognize the particular signature of each river on the Arctic basin, reflecting the chemical and biogeographical sources of the samples collected. Radionuclides (atoms with unstable nuclei) are of particular concern. They are residuals from the Khystym and Chernobyl accidents and are still monitored. Discharges of organic and inorganic carbons also are monitored for their effects on sensitive Arctic wetlands.

All of this is monitored via the cryosphere, Earth’s ice cover—snow, ice, glaciers, sea ice, and permafrost. The geophysical dynamics of the Siberian Coastal Tundra biome are complex and sensitive to climatic and environmental variation, especially where permafrost soils serve as vast sinks holding carbon dioxide and methane. Sediment samples provide climatologists critical information about the effects of global warming on the tundra. Scientists predict that 70 percent of the Siberian tundra will be gone by 2500 even if climate mitigation efforts are undertaken. In many areas, forests are encroaching on these habitats as their ranges creep northward.

It is recognized that remobilization of even small amounts of the vast reserves of frozen methane can quickly accelerate a rise in temperature. Scientists estimate that more than 80 percent of the Eastern Siberian Arctic Shelf region is saturated with methane. Continuing fluxes in geothermal seawater heat act as a conductor force, bringing methane deposits up from Arctic permafrost-related seabeds and into the atmosphere. These effects are consistent with similar releases of methane and carbon dioxide in the world’s oceans, and are important parameters for understanding the dynamics of future climate change in the Arctic.

In 1993, the Bolshoi Arktichesky (Great Arctic) Zapovednik was established, including 16,097 square miles (41,692 square kilometers) of the Taimyr Peninsula and the waters of the Karsk and Laptev Seas. These preserved lands provide valuable habitats for protected species, including the polar bear, reindeer, walrus, and beluga. Migratory birds are similarly protected.

Bibliography

Anderson, Leif G., Kjell-Åke Carlsson, Per O. J. Hall, Elis Holm, Dan Josefsson, Kristina Olsson, et al. “The Effect of the Siberian Tundra on the Environment of the Shelf Seas and the Arctic Ocean.” Ambio 28, no. 3 (1999).

Nuttall, Mark, and Terry V. Callaghan, eds. The Arctic: Environment, People, Policy. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2000.

Pardo, Esteban. "Global Heating in the Arctic Threatens Siberian Tundra." Deutsche Welle, 1 June 2022, www.dw.com/en/global-heating-in-the-arctic-threatens-siberian-tundra/a-61995924. Accessed 1 Sept. 2022.

Shakhova, Natalia, Igor Semiletov, Anatoly Salyuk, Vladimir Yusupov, Denis Kosmach, and Orjan Gustafsson. “Extensive Methane Venting to the Atmosphere from Sediments of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.” Science 327 (2010).

Sitch, Stephen, A. David McGuire, John Kimball, Nicola Gedney, John Gamon, Ryan Engstrom, et al. “Assessing the Carbon Balance of Circumpolar Arctic Tundra Using Remote Sensing and Process Modeling.” Ecological Application, 17, no. 1 (2007).