The steppe zone of Russia is the southern part of the East European Plain, Western Siberia, as well as the east, which is covered by steppes to the foothills of Altai and Transbaikalia. In the steppe zone, summers are usually warm, with limited rainfall and cold winters. The amount of precipitation is approximately 200-450 mm per year. In summer, here air moves from the Atlantic Ocean and, due to its distance from it, smoothly passes into the continental.
The steppe zone has a large extent, which forms the heterogeneity of its climate. For example, in winter you can observe the following phenomenon: the further you move east, the longer the winter lasts and the more it is cold. And if you move from west to east, then significantly reduced cloud cover and precipitation, which are approximately 500-300 mm per year. Moreover, the climate already has signs of a continental one, and the steppe itself looks drier and, naturally, the flora and fauna are changing.
Since there is little rainfall and high evaporation, the steppe zone of Russia, as a rule, has a surface runoff. The rivers here are shallow and in the summer completely dry up. The steppe zone is a complete treelessness with a predominance of natural landscapes. Here grassy vegetation is completely dominant , for hundreds of kilometers the sea of herbs is fragrant. The most common species are: steppe oats, fescue, feather grass, thin-legged and bluegrass, but the mixed grasses are more favored by the northern regions.
The steppe zone in the north contains chernozem with humus, which in the soil is about 8-10%, and to the south this level decreases already to 6%. When moving further south, to wormwood-fescue dry steppes, the grass cover is increasingly thinner and prevails with a low content of humus, sometimes less than 3-4%, the soil here is chestnut.
There is a natural zone of the steppe of several species: shrubby, meadow, feather grass and wormwood. The composition of the soil and the shape of the surface of the earth affect the nature of the cover.
Life is always boiling in the steppe, and the reason for this is forbs. It provides shelter and food for many species of animals. Currently, more than 50 species of mammals and about 250 species of birds live here. Only one large number of rodents: mice, voles, hamsters, jerboas, woodchucks. As a rule, they adapted very well to the environment and learned to disguise themselves well from numerous enemies, because the natural zone taught them that.
The steppe is full of birds, for example, such as whitish moons, small falcons, larks, burial eagles. bell cranes. This also includes birds such as avdotki, bustards, strep, rattles and spotted quail. They are very careful, like to walk on sown fields. Here you can also see gray and bearded partridges and nimble quails.
The steppe zone is an excellent habitat for jerboas. Despite its dense, knocked-down torso, the animal moves with rapid jumps on its hind legs, while controlling all its tail movements. He needs speed and quick reaction, since he is a welcome prey for local predators - foxes and weasels.
Birds also do not stop hunting for tasty prey for a moment, so the front legs of rodents are much shorter than the rear, and they run very quickly. There are animals here that don’t leave their shelter at all - the earth. These are the real earth moving, they include zokors and mole rats. Steppe ants also do not lag behind them and erect majestic structures underground and on its surface.
Active hamsters, field voles and mole rats reliably store the food reserves that they collected in the summer in small minks. A kurganchik mouse digs a mound or a small "kurganchik" and hides its food in it. Pishukha loves fragrant hay; she puts it in a neat stack right at the entrance to her mink. Of the ungulates, saigas are most common. He has excellent visual acuity, which helps him in moments of danger, and he has no equal in speed of running at all.