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Plymouth Pinelands
The Plymouth Pinelands, also known as the Massachusetts Coastal Pine Barrens, is an ecoregion located in Massachusetts in the United States. It is a part of the Atlantic coastal pine barrens. Ecology Southeastern Massachusetts, Cape Cod, and the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard consist of outwash from the last glacial maximum, which left thick glacial deposits of sand and gravel, providing the geologic foundation for a rare pine barren ecosystem. This fire-adapted forest and its coastal components are home to a host of rare species found almost nowhere else in the world. Interspersed among the over 500,000 acres (80 km2) of fragmented pine barrens are dozens of coastal plain ponds, frost pockets, a wide variety of shapes and sizes of its signature tree, the fire-dependent pitch pine, the endangered Plymouth red-bellied turtles and other globally rare plant communities on top of deep deposits of glacially-deposited sands which filter and protect several sole-source aq ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural communities and species. The biodiversity of flora, fauna and ecosystems that characterise an ecoregion tends to be distinct from that of other ecoregions. In theory, biodiversity or conservation ecoregions are relatively large areas of land or water where the probability of encountering different species and communities at any given point remains relatively constant, within an acceptable range of variation (largely undefined at this point). Three caveats are appropriate for all bio-geographic mapping approaches. Firstly, no single bio-geographic framework is optimal for all taxa. Ecoregions reflect the best compromise for as many taxa as possible. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
