Boreal Shield Ecozone (CEC)

The Boreal Shield is the boreal ecoregion of Canada. It is the southern part of the Canadian Shield. It extends over 3,800 kilometers from the eastern tip of Newfoundland to northern Alberta. This interspersed with granite rock landscape is defined as the overlap of the Canadian Shield to the boreal forest of Canada.

The Boreal Shield is also Canada's largest of the 15 ecoregions and covers almost 20 % of its land mass (about 1.8 million km ²), contains 43 % of the forest land used for forestry purposes and represents 22 % of freshwater in Canada, apart from the groundwater. The ecoregion generates about 50 billion Canadian dollars. Contributing to the production of electricity by hydropower with 16 billion CAD, while mining and forestry, accounts for around 6 billion each. The forestry sector provides the raw material for pulp and paper. The Boreal Shield is home to three million people and represents 15 % of those jobs created directly by the natural resources.

The ecoregion boreal shield shows a great ecological diversity, which includes both coastal conditions and strongly influenced continental areas, large differences in the length of the growing season, microclimates, soils and vegetation. Despite this diversity is the nature of the boreal shield relatively uniform over the entire extent of the area.

Climate

The climate of the area is continental with long, cold winters and short, warm summers. Air masses from the Hudson Bay provide for annual rainfall of 400 mm in the west to 1000 mm in the east. The average temperature in January is -15 ° C and 17 ° C in July. Regions in the vicinity of the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean are due to the balancing effect of the large body of water often warmer in winter and cooler in summer. On average there are 60 to 100 frost-free days per year, with some areas may have less than 40 frost-free days. Thus, the ecoregion is climatically not suitable for farming, because of modern cereal crops requires 100 frost free days a year. However, the soils of the ecoregion are already shallow and less fertile.

Soils

The bedrock of the boreal shield is banded gneiss, one of the oldest rock formations on the planet, which has formed from granite. During the last ice age, which ended 10,000 years ago, the sign was repeated far abraded by advancing glaciers up in the rock. The dissolved sediment was transported by melt water, so are only found flat ground, very acidic and nutrient-poor soils today. Moreover, the upcoming high bedrock ensures unfavorable for plant waterlogging. Large areas take a wetlands. Your organic soils as a result of lack of oxygen and continuous waterlogging a bad plant habitat.

Water Resources

The Boreal Shield is famous for its lakes and rocky shore. The influence of Pleistocene glaciers created thousands each other truncated sinks, holes and ruts that are now filled with water. The ancient crystalline bedrock with its faults, dykes, fissures and fractures dominates the flow dynamics of the water such that hydrologists describe the water regime as chaotic.

After the last Ice Age the settlement of the area began with the man who took advantage of the extensive network of rivers and lakes as a transport and food source. Besides fishing, trapping and hunting was practiced, for the waters also draw on other mammals. Today man uses the waters of the area primarily for electric power generation and recreation.

In eastern Boreal Shield begin marine food webs, to the rocky shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Newfoundland stream, which are also breeding grounds for many seabirds.

Flora

While agriculture has to fight in the boreal shield with serious limitations, and represent periodic wildfires also a limiting factor for vegetation, coniferous forests thrive well there, and cover 85% of the ecoregion. The forests are dominated by a few very adaptable tree species: black spruce, white spruce, Pinus banksiana ( "jack pine" ) and balsam fir. The black spruce is the most frequent and is for Canada's growing paper industry supplier of high-quality pulp.

The proportion of deciduous hardwood trees growing in the southern parts of the shield. In addition to the conifers here are paper birch, American Populus tremuloides and the Western balsam poplar with represented. In the southeast of the area and species occur that are common in temperate climates, such as yellow birch, sugar maple, black ash, and the Occidental Tree of Life.

Throughout the ecoregion, these forests are mixed with innumerable bogs, fens, marshes and other wetlands. With 20 % of the area, these ecosystems are the richest and most productive in the Boreal Shield.

Fauna

Every spring the numerous waters attract hundreds of thousands of ducks, loons, geese and swans. They come either to breed or go to their breeding grounds further north, to rest and to eat. The most numerous waterfowl species represented, remain through the summer in the boreal shield, are buffalo head duck, Dark Ducks, Wood Ducks, Ring-necked ducks, mallards, North American wigeon, blue-winged ducks, shovelers and Canada geese. Boreal Owl, Great Horned Owl, Evening Grosbeak, Blue Jays and White-throated Sparrow are just typical summer visitors in the area.

Characteristic mammals, indicator species of boreal shield, are Ren, white-tailed deer, elk, American Black Bear, wolf, lynx, snowshoe hare, fisher marten, raccoon and skunks True. The numerous wetlands, ponds, lakes and rivers are important habitats for beaver, muskrat, mink and American.

In the Arctic coastal area there are hooded, blue whales, fin whales, bottlenose whales, sperm whales, killer whales and pilot whales Large. Even the endangered Bowhead whales and humpback whales can be found here. In the inland include American char, Heringsmaräne, walleye ( Sander vitreus ), brook trout and Northern Pike the most common types of countless lakes and rivers of the ecoregion.

Source

• Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada, 2000: Ecological Assessment of the Boreal Shield Ecozone, ISBN 0-662-28679-0

• Geobotany
• Geography (Canada)