Biogeography of the Himalaya

Abstract

The outstanding peculiarities of the ecology of the Himalaya may be traced to its enormous massiveness, the great elevations of the mountain ranges, their trendlines, their location in the middle of a vast continental mass, their Tertiary orogeny, the Pleistocene glaciations and continued Post-Pleistocene uplift. The conditions commonly met with on other mountain ranges of the world hardly give any clue to those likely to prevail on the vastly amplified and much higher life zones on the Himalaya. Although situated only a few degrees north of the torrid zone, owing to its enormous size and its unparalleled elevation, we find here a complete range from the tropical to the deep arctic conditions. Extending nearly 3000 km from the east to west, it is obvious that the conditions must differ profoundly in the extreme eastern and western ends of the Himalaya. The general climatic conditions in the east are semi-oceanic, but become more and more continental as we proceed westward.