Sky Island
Sky islands are mountains that are isolated by surrounding lowlands of a dramatically different environment, a situation which, in combination with the altitudinal zonation of ecosystems, has significant implications for natural habitats. Endemism, vertical migration, and relict populations are some of the natural phenomena to be found on sky islands.
The complex dynamics of species richness on sky islands draws attention from the discipline of biogeography, and likewise the biodiversity is of concern to conservation biology. One of the key elements of a sky island is separation by sheer physical distance from the other mountain ranges, resulting in a habitat island, such as a forest surrounded by desert.
Some sky islands serve as refugia for boreal species stranded by warming climates since the last ice age. In other cases, localized populations of plants and animals tend towards speciation, the same process that happens on oceanic islands such as the Galápagos Islands.
Read more about Sky Island: Origin of The Term, Characteristics
Famous quotes containing the words sky and/or island:
“I turn my head to sky rains falling,
wash the wounds of numbness from my soul.
Turn my heart in tides of fierce renewal,
where love and rage run whole.
Come drink deep.”
—Carolyn McDade (20th century)
“We crossed a deep and wide bay which makes eastward north of Kineo, leaving an island on our left, and keeping to the eastern side of the lake. This way or that led to some Tomhegan or Socatarian stream, up which the Indian had hunted, and whither I longed to go. The last name, however, had a bogus sound, too much like sectarian for me, as if a missionary had tampered with it; but I knew that the Indians were very liberal. I think I should have inclined to the Tomhegan first.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)