Fundamentals of High Altitude Biology

High altitude biology deals primarily, though not exclusively, with mountain autochthonous (ie original or earliest known inhabitant) plants and animals, their environment, functions, structure, habits, special adaptations, origins and evolution and their ecological interrelations to life in the plains.;This book also discusses some of the typical lowland animals, which are often found at high altitudes on mountains and the factors influencing their presence and their relation to the true high altitude species.;A study of man, permanently resident at high altitudes, and of exposure of the sea-level resident to the extremes of high altitude conditions and his acclimatization, forms an integral part of high altitude biology.;High altitude biology is a relatively recent and highly specialized multidisciplinary development, interlinked with advances in widely diversified fields like mountain warfare, aviation, medicine and aerospace biology. Many unrelated events in the world have contributed to rapid advances in our knowledge of the biology of high altitude regions.;Recent advances in our knowledge of this new field have demonstrated the undreamt of capacities of organisms to adapt to extremely inhospitable, and to an extent, even lethal environmental conditions, almost on the outer fringe of biosphere.