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Ecoregions with Grasslands in British Columbia, the Yukon, and Southern Ontario

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Ecoregions with Grasslands in British Columbia, the Yukon, and Southern Ontario 83 Chapter 4 Ecoregions with Grasslands in British Columbia, the Yukon, and Southern Ontario Joseph D. Shorthouse Department of Biology, Laurentian University Sudbury, Ontario, Canada P3E 2C6 Abstract. The second largest grasslands of Canada are found in south-central British Columbia in valleys between mountain ranges and on arid mountain-side steppes or benchlands. The province contains five ecozones, with most of the grassland habitat in the Montane Cordillera Ecozone. This ecozone consists of a series of plateaux and low mountain ranges and comprises 17 ecoregions, 7 of which contain grasslands. Dominant grasses here are bunchgrasses. A few scattered grasslands are found in the Yukon in the Boreal Cordillera Ecozone within three ecoregions. Grasslands in southwestern Ontario consist of about 100 small remnants of what was once much more abundant tallgrass prairie. These grasslands grow in association with widely spaced deciduous trees and are remnants of a past prairie peninsula. Grasslands called alvars are also found on flat limestone bedrock in southern Ontario. This chapter briefly describes the physiography, climate, soils, and prominent flora of each ecoregion for the benefit of future biologists wishing to study the biota of these unique grasslands. Résumé. Les prairies du centre-sud de la Colombie-Britannique sont les deuxièmes plus vastes au Canada. Elles se trouvent dans les vallées séparant les chaînes de montagnes, et sur les steppes ou replats arides à flanc de montagne. La province renferme cinq écozones, et l’habitat de prairies se trouve principalement dans l’écozone de la cordillère alpestre. Cette écozone est constituée d’une série de plateaux et de chaînes de montagnes basses et se divise en 17 écorégions, dont 7 renferment des prairies. Les graminées dominantes sont des graminées cespiteuses. On trouve également quelques prairies isolées au Yukon, dans trois écorégions de l’écozone de la cordillère boréale. Les prairies du sud-ouest de l’Ontario, au nombre d’une centaine, sont de petits vestiges de ce qui formait autrefois une prairie haute beaucoup plus vaste. Ces prairies sont aujourd’hui associées à des arbres décidus très clairsemés et représentent ce qui reste de l’ancienne « péninsule de prairie ». On trouve également des prairies appelées alvars sur les plaines calcaires du sud de l’Ontario. Ce chapitre décrit brièvement la physiographie, le climat, les sols et les principales espèces végétales de chacune des écorégions à l’intention des biologistes qui souhaiteront dans le futur étudier les biotes de ces prairies uniques en leur genre. Introduction Mention the word “grasslands” to most Canadians, and the prairies of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba first come to mind. However, Canada’s second largest assemblage of grasslands is in British Columbia (Gayton 2003). The BC grasslands have many characteristics in common with prairie grasslands, but a few unique features as well. Grasslands comprising tallgrass species were once also found in southern Ontario from Toronto to Windsor. They have all but disappeared, with only scattered remnants remaining, one of the largest being the Ojibway Prairie near Windsor (see Chapter 9). Remnant grasslands also exist in northwestern Ontario, with additional scattered grasslands in the Yukon. The grasslands in each of these interesting ecoregions and their characteristics are presented here. Shorthouse, J. D. 2010. Ecoregions with Grasslands in British Columbia, the Yukon, and Southern Ontario. In Arthropods of Canadian Grasslands (Volume 1): Ecology and Interactions in Grassland Habitats. Edited by J. D. Shorthouse and K. D. Floate. Biological Survey of Canada. pp. 83-103. © 2010 Biological Survey of Canada. ISBN 978-0-9689321-4-8 doi:10.3752/9780968932148.ch4 84 J. D. Shorthouse Grasslands of British Columbia British Columbia is the most biodiverse province in Canada when one includes the marine environment (Cannings and Cannings 1996). British Columbia contains about 2,850 species of vascular plants of a total of about 4,150 in Canada and an estimated 35,000 species of insects of an estimated 55,000 in all of Canada (Harding and McCullum 1994). Much of this diversity is due to the province’s complex topography of mountain ranges with large intervening valleys and plateaux that run in a north–south direction. Eastward-flowing winds from the Pacific Ocean pick up vast amounts of precipitation and as the air masses rise over the mountain ranges, they drop most of their moisture on the west side where abundant forests grow. The eastern sides of the mountains receive much less rainfall and are relatively dry. In these dry rain-shadow areas, the sparse spring and summer rains evaporate before they can penetrate the soil such that plant growth depends mostly on winter precipitation (Brayshaw 1965). Thus, most grasses start growing early in the season and finish their life cycles before the hottest and driest part of the year. Trees are unable to survive in these harsh conditions and are found only in areas where there is sufficient soil moisture. Most of the grassland communities are found in the south-central part of the province (Fig. 1) (Meidinger and Pojar 1991). Unfortunately, as is the case with the prairie grasslands to the east and the tallgrass grasslands in southern Manitoba (Chapter 3) and southwestern Ontario (see the “Grasslands in Southern Ontario” section), most of the grasslands of British Columbia have been disturbed or destroyed and there is urgent need to protect the few natural tracts that remain (Gayton 2003). Various systems have been used to classify the natural regions of British Columbia, including that of Meidinger and Pojar (1991), which describes zones based on climate, physiography, or vegetation. Pojar and Meidinger (1991) give a good overview of the ecosystems of British Columbia and describe the location of zones containing grasslands. Following their classification, three zones where grasses are dominant are the bunchgrass zone (Nicholson et al. 1991), the ponderosa pine zone (Hope, Lloyd et al. 1991), and the interior Douglas-fir zone (Hope, Mitchell et al. 1991). Scudder (see Chapter 6) used this system in his analysis of biodiversity hotspots in British Columbia. However, for reasons of consistency, the system used by the Ecological Stratification Working Group (1995) is used here as it is elsewhere in this volume. The five ecozones in British Columbia identified by the Ecological Stratification Working Group (1995) include the Boreal Cordillera to the north, the Montane Cordillera in the centre of the province, the Boreal Plains in the Peace River area, the Taiga Plains north of the Boreal Plains in the northeast, and the Pacific Marine along the entire western coastline. Most of the major grasslands of British Columbia are found in the Montane Cordillera Ecozone (Fig. 2). Within Canada, the Montane Cordillera Ecozone extends from the eastern Rocky Mountains in Alberta to the western slope of the Cascades in British Columbia and from the latitude of the Skeena Mountains in northern British Columbia to the USA border (Fig. 2). This ecozone is Canada’s sixth largest, covering more than 49 million ha, and is probably our most complex, with landscapes ranging from alpine tundra to dense coniferous forests, grasslands, riparian woodlands, and dry sagebrush. About 90% of the area of this ecozone in Canada is in the province of British Columbia and the remaining 10% is in western Alberta (Fig. 2). This interior region comprises a series of plateaux and low mountain ranges. A large interior plateau from near the centre of the province extends to the border with Washington State. This plateau has been further subdivided into a series of smaller Ecoregions with Grasslands in British Columbia, the Yukon, and Southern Ontario 85 Fig. 1. Map showing locations of grasslands of British Columbia. plateaux and highlands. The interior plateau is a region of relatively low relief that includes large portions of the Fraser and Thompson-Okanagan plateaux, undulating only 100 m or less over wide areas. Many of the region’s rivers have cut into the plateau, leaving deep, rugged canyons. The Okanagan Valley and the Creston Valley are two major agricultural areas in this ecozone. There are some large deep lakes and major river systems, including the Fraser River and the Columbia River headwaters. 86 J. D. Shorthouse Fig. 2. Map of British Columbia and western Alberta showing the ecoregions in the Montane Cordillera Ecozone. Of the 17 ecoregions in this ecozone, 7 (Fig. 2) contain significant grasslands. The most prominent grasslands are in the Okanagan Valley from the border with Washington State to Summerland, the Similkameen River Valley near Keremeos, the Thompson River Valley from Spences Bridge to Kamloops, the Nicola River Valley, and the middle Fraser and lower Chilcotin River valleys from the Farwell Canyon area to Big Bar (Meidinger and Pojar 1991). Outside of this ecozone, small grasslands occur in association with the Garry Ecoregions with Grasslands in British Columbia, the Yukon, and Southern Ontario 87 oak meadows of southern Vancouver Island, the parklands of the Peace River country (see Chapter 3), and the cold mountain grasslands of the northern Rockies. Grasslands are also scattered throughout northern British Columbia, especially on south-facing slopes. The majority of British Columbia’s grasslands represent the northern limit of the Great Basin shrub-steppe grasslands found south of the border with Washington State and extending south to Mexico (Franklin and Dyrness 1973; O’Connor and Wieda 2001). Daubenmire (1992) referred to the part of the Great Basin from central Oregon northward across the states of Washington, Idaho, and western Montana to southern British Columbia as Palouse prairie, but this term is not used in Canada’s ecosystem classification. The most southern grasslands in the Okanagan Valley near Osoyoos have been referred to as “Canada’s Pocket Desert,” but some biologists argue that they are not deserts because they are not dry enough and are too cold (Cannings and Cannings 1996).
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