Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests

Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests
Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests
	Cap Tourmente National Wildlife Area in Quebec in fall
Ecology
Realm	Nearctic
Biome	Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests
Borders	List Eastern forest-boreal transition ; New England-Acadian forests ; Northeastern coastal forests ; Allegheny Highlands forests ; Southern Great Lakes forests ;
Bird species	220
Mammal species	56
Geography
Area	116,400 km2 (44,900 sq mi)
Countries	Canada ; United States ;
States/Provinces	New York ; Ontario ; Quebec ; Vermont ;
Climate type	Humid continental (some areas with hot summers)
Conservation
Conservation status	Critical/Endangered
Habitat loss	54.4%
Protected	2.23%

Last updated February 07, 2024

The Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests is a temperate broadleaf and mixed forest ecoregion of North America, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund. It lies mostly in south and eastern Ontario and Quebec in Canada, and Upstate New York and Vermont in the United States.

Setting

This area includes much of northern New York state (save for the Adirondacks), western Vermont, the Saint Lawrence Lowlands in southern Quebec and most of southern Ontario between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay on Lake Huron. The region includes the Frontenac Axis, the Niagara Escarpment up to Manitoulin Island on Lake Huron, and Lake Simcoe. Meanwhile, the forests south of Lake Ontario are classified as the Southern Great Lakes forests ecoregion and in Canada the higher elevations of the Canadian Appalachian Mountains and the Laurentian Mountains constitute the Eastern Canadian forests.^[2]

This region has warm summers and cold, snowy winters.

Flora

This ecoregion is a transition area between the taiga to the north and the temperate deciduous forest to the south and thus contains a variety of habitats including freshwater marshes, dunes, bogs, fens, and hardwood and conifer swamps. Trees of the woodland include eastern hemlock, Eastern white pine, Red pine, White spruce, Black spruce, Balsam fir, and hardwoods White oak, Northern red oak, American beech, Sugar maple, Yellow birch, Paper birch and Quaking aspen. Particular areas include the oak/pitch pine mix of the Albany Pine Bush, areas of dry rocky alvar plain, and the white cedars of the Niagara Escarpment.

Fauna

The Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests are very rich in wildlife. Birds include cardinals, downy woodpecker, wood duck and eastern screech owl. Large mammals including Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis), cougar (Puma concolor), caribou (Rangifer tarandus), wolverine (Gulo gulo), elk (Cervus canadensis) and eastern wolf (Canis lycaon) have been completely extirpated from this ecoregion; remaining mammals include white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), American black bear (Ursus americanus), coyote (Canis latrans), moose (Alces alces), snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus), eastern chipmunk (Tamias striatus), bobcat (Lynx rufus), American red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) and eastern gray squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis).

Threats and preservation

The Saint Lawrence River is one of the most polluted in the world^{[ citation needed ]} and these surrounding forests are vulnerable to clearance for agriculture and urban development including the cities of Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City and suburbs of Toronto, Syracuse and Albany, New York. Less than 5% of natural forest remains intact. The fragmented blocks of remaining habitat include: the eastern end of Lake Ontario; Missisquoi National Wildlife Refuge in Vermont; the Chaumont Barrens, Rome Sand Plains, the Albany Pine Bush and the proposed Split Rock Wildway in New York; Bruce Peninsula (the barrier between Georgian Bay and the main section of Lake Huron), Alfred Bog, Luther Marsh, the Ganaraska Forest and Carden Plain in Ontario; and Mont Saint-Hilaire, Lac Saint-François National Wildlife Area and Cap Tourmente National Wildlife Areas in Quebec.

References and external links

1 2 3 4 Hoekstra, J. M.; Molnar, J. L.; Jennings, M.; Revenga, C.; Spalding, M. D.; Boucher, T. M.; Robertson, J. C.; Heibel, T. J.; Ellison, K. (2010). Molnar, J. L. (ed.). The Atlas of Global Conservation: Changes, Challenges, and Opportunities to Make a Difference . University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-26256-0.
1 2 "Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests | Ecoregions | WWF". World Wildlife Fund. Retrieved 2020-11-13.

"Eastern Great Lakes Lowland Forests". Terrestrial Ecoregions. World Wildlife Fund.
World Wildlife Fund, ed. (2001). "Eastern Great Lakes Lowland Forests". WildWorld Ecoregion Profile. National Geographic Society. Archived from the original on 2010-03-08.

External links

Central U.S. hardwood forests images at bioimages.vanderbilt.edu

Related Research Articles

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The New England-Acadian forests are a temperate broadleaf and mixed forest ecoregion in North America that includes a variety of habitats on the hills, mountains and plateaus of New England and New York State in the Northeastern United States, and Quebec and the Maritime Provinces of Eastern Canada.

Aiguebelle National Park(French: Parc national d'Aiguebelle) is a provincial park in Quebec, Canada. It is located in western Quebec in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region some 50 km north-east of Rouyn-Noranda, 50 km west of Amos, Quebec, 100 km north west of Val-d'Or, Quebec, and about 50 km due west of Lake Hebecourt. The park has a surface area of 268,3 km².

The eastern forest–boreal transition is a temperate broadleaf and mixed forests ecoregion of North America, mostly in eastern Canada. It is a transitional zone or region between the predominantly coniferous Boreal Forest and the mostly deciduous broadleaf forest region further south.

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The Eastern Canadian Boreal Forests is a boreal ecoregion in Eastern Canada, defined by the One Earth ecoregion categorization system.

The Eastern Canadian Shield taiga is an ecoregion of Canada as defined by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) categorization system.

The Yukon Interior dry forests is a taiga ecoregion of Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Muskwa–Slave Lake forests</span> Taiga ecoregion of northwestern Canada

The Muskwa-Slave Lake forests ecoregion covers Canadian taiga in northwestern Alberta, northeastern British Columbia and a large portion of the southwestern Northwest Territories around the Mackenzie River valley and the Great Slave Lake.

The South Central Rockies forests is a temperate coniferous forest ecoregion of the United States located mainly in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. It has a considerably drier climate than the North Central Rockies forest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colorado Rockies forests</span> Temperate coniferous forests ecoregion of the United States

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">North Central Rockies forests</span> Temperate coniferous forest ecoregion in Canada and the United States

The North Central Rockies forests is a temperate coniferous forest ecoregion of Canada and the United States. This region overlaps in large part with the North American inland temperate rainforest and gets more rain on average than the South Central Rockies forests and is notable for containing the only inland populations of many species from the Pacific coast.

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The Southern Great Lakes lowland forests is a temperate broadleaf and mixed forest ecoregion of North America, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund. Located near the Great Lakes, it lies mostly in the central northeastern United States and extends into southeast central Canada. In modern times, little of it remains intact due to land use, including agriculture and urban uses.

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[Atlas-1] 1 2 3 4 Hoekstra, J. M.; Molnar, J. L.; Jennings, M.; Revenga, C.; Spalding, M. D.; Boucher, T. M.; Robertson, J. C.; Heibel, T. J.; Ellison, K. (2010). Molnar, J. L. (ed.). The Atlas of Global Conservation: Changes, Challenges, and Opportunities to Make a Difference . University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-26256-0.

[WWF-2] 1 2 "Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests | Ecoregions | WWF". World Wildlife Fund. Retrieved 2020-11-13.

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