Zone into Life

Butterwort
Arrowleaf Balsamroot
Subalpine Larch
Herb Robert
Queen's Cup
Pk. Mtn. Heather
Whitebark Pine

Habitat Key:
 Water
 Bare Ground and Rock
 Snow and Ice
 Heather/Alpine Zone
 Subalpine Zone
 Mountain Hemlock Zone
 Silver Fir Zone
 Western Hemlock Zone
 West Side Shrub/Herb. Zone
 Subalpine Fir Zone
 Douglas-fir Zone
 Ponderosa Pine Zone
 East Side Shrub/Herb. Zone

Match habitat colors with the vegetation map above. To better understand how these habitats are organized on the landscape, switch the map to topography view.

Start Over

Map View: vegetation, topography.

Procedure:

Review each life zone (left) and each plant (above) by clicking on the text name. Place each plant in its appropriate life zone by clicking on the plant icon and then clicking the corresponding color oval in which you think the plant is found. When all the plants are checked-off, you will be given another clue. Beware, you may only make five incorrect choices before you have to start over.

Communities of Life

To better understand how the colors in the map above correspond to life zones, a vertical profile of the segment (A1, A2) is illustrated at left. Study the image and see how the colors correlate to elevation, forest cover, slope aspect (slope-facing direction) and precipitation gradient. Forest coverage is represented by tiny, vertical green lines.

For example, in the image above, the yellow color represents the East Side Shrub and Herbaceous Zone and no trees (green lines) are seen above the yellow area. Also, notice that yellow is found only on the east side of the mountains, which receives much less precipitation.

The map at the top of the page represents the southern part of North Cascades National Park. Field researchers collected data about the vegetation types while hiking in the field. They provided this data to scientists who plugged the data, as well as elevation information, into Geographical Information Systems (GIS) computer software to produce the map above.

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