The Northern tall grasslands is one of 867 terrestrial

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of ...

s defined by the

World Wide Fund for Nature The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the Wor ...

. This ecoregion largely follows the

Red River Valley The Red River Valley is a region in central North America that is drained by the Red River of the North; it is part of both Canada and the United States. Forming the border between Minnesota and North Dakota when these territories were admitted ...

in the

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source o ...

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outs ...

Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Winn ...

and the American states of

North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, ...

and

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

Climate

The Northern tall grasslands have a

humid continental climate A humid continental climate is a climatic region defined by Russo-German climatologist Wladimir Köppen in 1900, typified by four distinct seasons and large seasonal temperature differences, with warm to hot (and often humid) summers and freezin ...

with moderate

precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. ...

, usually between 450-700mm. Winters here are very cold, with a mean winter temperature of , and

summer Summer is the hottest of the four temperate seasons, occurring after spring and before autumn. At or centred on the summer solstice, the earliest sunrise and latest sunset occurs, daylight hours are longest and dark hours are shortest, wit ...

s are warm, with a mean temperature of . The ecoregion's mean annual temperature is .

Flora

Dominant

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns and ...

es include big bluestem ('' Andropogon gerardi''), switchgrass (''

Panicum virgatum ''Panicum virgatum'', commonly known as switchgrass, is a perennial warm season bunchgrass native to North America, where it occurs naturally from 55°N latitude in Canada southwards into the United States and Mexico. Switchgrass is one of the ...

'') and Indiangrass (''

Sorghastrum nutans ''Sorghastrum nutans'', commonly known as either Indiangrass or yellow Indiangrass, is a North American prairie grass found in the central and eastern United States and Canada, especially in the Great Plains and tallgrass prairies. Description ...

''). In wetter areas, trembling aspen ('' Populus tremuloides'') and bur oak (''

Quercus macrocarpa ''Quercus macrocarpa'', the bur oak or burr oak, is a species of oak tree native to eastern North America. It is in the white oak section, ''Quercus'' sect. ''Quercus'', and is also called mossycup oak, mossycup white oak, blue oak, or scrub oa ...

'') can be found.

Fauna

Like other North American prairie ecoregions, the Northern tall grasslands once supported large herds of

bison Bison are large bovines in the genus ''Bison'' (Greek: "wild ox" (bison)) within the tribe Bovini. Two extant taxon, extant and numerous extinction, extinct species are recognised. Of the two surviving species, the American bison, ''B. bison'' ...

(''Bison bison'') and elk (''Cervus canadensis''), which were hunted by the

gray wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; plural, : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been reco ...

(''Canis lupus'') and coyote (''Canis latrans''). All of these save for the coyote have been largely eliminated from the region, though the bison and wolf are recovering. Other, more common species in the ecoregion include

white-tailed deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known as the whitetail or Virginia deer, is a medium-sized deer native to North America, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It has also been introduced t ...

(''Odocoileus virginianus''),

rabbit Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit spec ...

(''Sylvilagus'' spp.),

ground squirrel Ground squirrels are members of the squirrel family of rodents ( Sciuridae), which generally live on or in the ground, rather than trees. The term is most often used for the medium-sized ground squirrels, as the larger ones are more commonly known ...

(''

Spermophilus ''Spermophilus'' is a genus of ground squirrels in the squirrel family. As traditionally defined the genus was very species-rich, ranging through Europe, Asia and North America, but this arrangement was found to be paraphyletic to the certa ...

'' spp.) and large populations of waterfowl.

Conservation

Some protected areas of this ecoregion include: * Manitoba Tall Grass Prairie Preserve

References

External links