High Altitude Invertebrate Diversity in the Ural Mountains

The Urals extend over 2000 km in a north-south direction from ca. 70°N to ca. 51°N with a width of up to 250 km. The five orographic regions, polar, subpolar, northern, central, and southern Urals, cross several zonobiomes from arctic tundra to steppe (Fig. 14.1). The highest peak, Mt. Narodnaya (1896 m), is in the subpolar Urals. The largest areas with alpine vegetation are on plateaux, formed after the Quaternary uplift (Parmuzin 1985). The uplift was least pronounced in the central Urals, where mountains are the lowest and do not reach the treeline, except for the Basegi Mts. The submeridional disposition of the ridges, which form a barrier and largely influence precipitation distribution, results in an asymmetrical landscape structure. This asymmetry is a result of uneven tectonic uplift and is intensified by today’s climatic barrier situation, which modifies the structure of latitudinal zonation. The climatic differences between the western and eastern macroslopes result in contrasting vegetation, subalpine meadows and forests on the western macroclope, and grass-moss-lichen heath on the central ridges and plateaux and on the eastern macroslope. Alpine landscapes are found on every peak above 800 m in the north and above 1000–1100 m in the south (Makunina 1974). The western and eastern macroslopes are contrasting climatically because the western macroslope receives Atlantic air masses whilst the eastern one is often influenced by Arctic air (Parmuzin 1985). This climatic difference has been the reason for traditional faunistic comparisons between the two macroslopes.