Section Three: Reading Comprehension (2)

Mountaineers have noted that as they climb, for example, up to the 12,633-foot Humphreys Peak in the San Francisco Peaks in Arizona, plant life changes radically. Starting among the cacti of the Sonoran Desert, one climbs into a pine forest at 7,000 feet and a treeless alpine tundra at the summit. It may seem that plants at a given altitude are associated in what can be called “communities” – groupings of interacting species. The idea is that over time, plants that require particular climate and soil conditions come to live ...