Fig. 9.5. The influence of climatic gradients on ecological distributions are easiest to observe in mountainous areas, where changes occur across relatively short distances. Moving upslope, mixed coniferous and deciduous forests give way to a sequence of coniferous forest types, and eventually, to alpine meadows that are largely devoid of trees. The elevation at which these transitions occur depends on latitude, indicating that it is mainly temperature, not elevation, that is responsible for the observed pattern.
