For the ecoregion in which Mississauga is found, the Carolinian Forest Ecoregion
ID: 77620 • Letter: F
Question
For the ecoregion in which Mississauga is found, the Carolinian Forest Ecoregion also called the Deciduous Forest Region.describe the:
a. typical climate (for example, average temperature and precipitation) (4 marks).
b. soil characteristics (2 marks).
c. major landforms and water bodies (2 marks).
4. Describe the influence that the climate has on the dominant vegetation found in this ecoregion (4 marks).
5. Name two major plant species (one native and one invasive) and two major animal species (one native and one invasive) found in this ecoregion. For each species, give
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the family, genus and species names (4 marks). In addition, describe the functional role / importance of each species in this ecoregion (4 marks).
Explanation / Answer
1.Mississauga's climate is considered moderate. The summer months can bring high temperatures sometimes accompanied by high humidity levels. The average temperature in July and August is 20 C (70 F) but the temperature can soar to 30 C (86 F) and above. A high humidity level can make the temperature appear even warmer still. Winters in Mississauga can be cold, with temperatures most often below the freezing mark. The average temperature in January and February is -6 C (21 F). Colder periods with temperatures as low as -15 C (-4 F) in these months are not uncommon. On the same token brief periods of warmer temperatures also occur on occasion throughout the winter season. The snowfall in Mississauga is relatively low compared with the rest of the province and the rest of Canada.
Mississauga Average Monthly Temperatures
2.
Wetlands
Northern peat-forming wetlands (peatlands) are large sinks for atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) and sources of atmospheric methane (CH4), thus playing an important role in the greenhouse effect and global climate. There is particular interest to understand how climate and environmental change will affect greenhouse gas dynamics in these sites. In peatlands CO2 is sequestered as a net imbalance between plant productivity and microbial decomposition. Decomposition is particularly slow in part because of cold temperatures, lack of nutrients, waterlogged anaerobic conditions, and the rather anti-microbial nature of the vegetation. Methane emissions from peatlands occur as the balance between the activities of 2 groups of microorganisms: anaerobic methanogenic archaea and aerobic methane oxidizing bacteria. My research in these sites focuses principally on the microbial control of carbon and nutrient cycling in peatlands with the objective of understanding what controls microbial community dynamics in these sites and it turn how these dynamics relate to patterns of CO2 and CH4 fluxes. A large portion of my research is devoted to characterizing how these relationships are affected by human induced climate, environmental, and land-use change.
Forests
Canada contains 10 percent of the world's forests and is the largest exporter of forest products. Forests also contain a large stock of organic carbon that would otherwise contribute to the global greenhouse effect as CO2 in the atmosphere, upland forest soils are sinks for atmospheric CH4, and occasionally forest soils are sources of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. There is interest to preserve ecosystem functioning in managed sites to promote rapid and successful tree regrowth to maintain resource supply and for better environmental stewardship. Soil microorganisms control the often-limited nutrient supply in forests through decomposition of detritus and fixation. Forestry practices that maintain soil microbial communities and functioning may result in more resilient, sustainable systems. My work involves linking microbial ecology to nutrient and carbon cycling and determining the degree to which forestry practices and climate and environmental change alter forest soil microbial activities and diversity
3.Most land in Mississauga drains to either of the two main river systems, with the exception of the smaller Mary Fix and Cooksville Creeks which run roughly through the center of Mississauga entering the lake near Port Credit. Some small streams and reservoirs are part of the Sixteen Mile Creek system in the far north-west corner of the city, but these drain toward the lake in neighbouring Milton and Oakville.
4.An ecoregion is a "recurring pattern of ecosystems associated with characteristic combinations of soil and landform that characterise that region" elaborates on this by defining ecoregions as: %u201Careas within which there is spatial coincidence in characteristics of geographical phenomena associated with differences in the quality, health, and integrity of ecosystems%u201D %u201CCharacteristics of geographical phenomena%u201D may include geology, physiography, vegetation, climate, hydrology, terrestrial and aquatic fauna, and soils, and may or may not include the impacts of human activity (e.g. land use patterns, vegetation changes). There is significant, but not absolute, spatial correlation among these characteristics, making the delineation of ecoregions an imperfect science. Another complication is that environmental conditions across an ecoregion boundary may change very gradually, e.g. the prairie-forest transition in the midwestern United States, making it difficult to identify an exact dividing boundary. Such transition zones are called ecotones.
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec C -6.2 -5.6 -1.0 6.1 12.3 17.8 20.7 19.6 15.2 9.0 3.1 -3.2