The Trans-Baikal Bald Mountain tundra is a Palearctic tundra ecoregion in Russia, spanning a chain of mountaintops above the treeline that runs from the northern edge of Lake Baikal to the coast of the Okhotsk Sea, taking in the Barguzin, Kodar, Stanovoy, Aldan, Dzhugdzhur, and Bureya ranges. Above the forest, dwarf shrubs such as dwarf Siberian pine and Siberian alder give way to open mountain tundra of moss, lichen, and low plants like white dryad, and finally to a bare, stony "goltsy" zone where gray reindeer lichen and other lichens cling to rock and permafrost. The climate is strongly continental and subarctic, with long, cold winters, short, cool summers in which no month averages much warmth, and low precipitation. The wolverine is the ecoregion's flagship species, sharing the slopes with snow sheep, northern pika, musk deer, reindeer, and grey wolves, yet only about one percent of the region is protected. Hardy native plants here include the white dryad and bog bilberry.

At a glance

About the tundra biome

Treeless polar and high-mountain landscapes of low shrubs, sedges, mosses, and lichens, where cold and a short growing season cap plant height. Soils are frequently frozen as permafrost, and these systems recover only slowly from disturbance.

Catalog plants suited to this ecoregion

Computed from each plant's stated USDA zone range against this ecoregion's CHELSA-derived current zone range, with the CHELSA mid-century warming delta applied for the projection. Plants whose stated range falls outside both the current and projected zone end up dropped; the rest land in one of the three buckets below.

Collections for this ecoregion

Curated multi-plant collections whose members all fit this ecoregion's zone range — no won't-grow members smuggled in. Overall fit class shown per collection is the weakest link across its members.

Related ecoregions