Converging Autumn Ecotones

The morning sun casts its warmth over this scenic picture of Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. In this picture, mountain big sagebrush with low-growing native cool-season grasses underneath, interspersed with encroaching Douglas fir, gives way to an aspen woodlot, which then yields to a vast expanse of forest comprised predominantly of Douglas fir at lower elevations, interspersed with Engelman spruce, lodgepole pine, and sub-alpine fir as the elevation increases until finally the rock face of the Centennial Mountains rises toward the sky. Such an abrupt convergence of differing ecotones in this manner leads to a plethora of floral and faunal biodiversity not commonly seen in southwest Montana, and thus adds even more to the uniqueness that is the Refuge. Photo by Cortez Rohr/USFWS.