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Prairie Peninsula
The Prairie Peninsula is an eastward projection of vegetation typically found in the American prairies into Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. It is so named because it is an extension of grassland into the forests of the eastern United States. Natural fire regimes are considered to have helped maintain the eastern prairies. The Prairie Peninsula is considered an endangered ecosystem today. Through human settlement and farming, the peninsula has become heavily fragmented. Geographic history The Prairie Peninsula was mostly forested during the early Holocene. Prairie species began to thrive as aridity in the region increased between 10,000 and 8,500 years ago, displacing trees such as elms, ashes, ironwoods, and sugar maples. Trees recolonized the area between 8,500 and 6,200 years ago, such as oaks and hickories. The prairie ecosystem became dominant again around 6,200 years ago, despite the climate being less arid than it was between 10,000 and 8,500 years ago. It is hyp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prairie
Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type. Temperate grassland regions include the Pampas of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, and the steppe of Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan. Lands typically referred to as "prairie" tend to be in North America. The term encompasses the area referred to as the Interior Lowlands of Canada, the United States, and Mexico, which includes all of the Great Plains as well as the wetter, hillier land to the east. In the U.S., the area is constituted by most or all of the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma, and sizable parts of the states of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and western and southern Minnesota. The Palouse of Washington and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wisconsin
Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. The bulk of Wisconsin's population live in areas situated along the shores of Lake Michigan. The largest city, Milwaukee, anchors its largest metropolitan area, followed by Green Bay and Kenosha, the third- and fourth-most-populated Wisconsin cities respectively. The state capital, Madison, is currently the second-most-populated and fastest-growing city in the state. Wisconsin is divided into 72 counties and as of the 2020 census had a population of nearly 5.9 million. Wisconsin's geography is diverse, having been greatly impacted by glaciers during the Ice Age with the exception of the Driftless Area. The Northern Highland and Western Upland along ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illinois
Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockford, as well Springfield, its capital. Of the fifty U.S. states, Illinois has the fifth-largest gross domestic product (GDP), the sixth-largest population, and the 25th-largest land area. Illinois has a highly diverse economy, with the global city of Chicago in the northeast, major industrial and agricultural hubs in the north and center, and natural resources such as coal, timber, and petroleum in the south. Owing to its central location and favorable geography, the state is a major transportation hub: the Port of Chicago has access to the Atlantic Ocean through the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence Seaway and to the Gulf of Mexico from the Mississippi River via the Illinois Waterway. Additionally, the Mississippi, Ohio, and W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th state on December 11, 1816. It is bordered by Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the south and southeast, and the Wabash River and Illinois to the west. Various Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous peoples inhabited what would become Indiana for thousands of years, some of whom the U.S. government expelled between 1800 and 1836. Indiana received its name because the state was largely possessed by native tribes even after it was granted statehood. Since then, settlement patterns in Indiana have reflected regional cultural segmentation present in the Eastern United States; the state's northernmost tier was settled primarily by people from New England and New York ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ohio
Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the List of U.S. states and territories by population, seventh-most populous and List of U.S. states and territories by population density, tenth-most densely populated. The state's capital and List of cities in Ohio, largest city is Columbus, Ohio, Columbus, with the Columbus metropolitan area, Ohio, Columbus metro area, Cincinnati metropolitan area, Greater Cincinnati, and Greater Cleveland being the List of metropolitan statistical areas, largest metropolitan areas. Ohio is bordered by Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the west, and Michigan to the northwest. Ohio is historically known as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Holocene
The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene together form the Quaternary period. The Holocene has been identified with the current warm period, known as MIS 1. It is considered by some to be an interglacial period within the Pleistocene Epoch, called the Flandrian interglacial.Oxford University Press – Why Geography Matters: More Than Ever (book) – "Holocene Humanity" section https://books.google.com/books?id=7P0_sWIcBNsC The Holocene corresponds with the rapid proliferation, growth and impacts of the human species worldwide, including all of its written history, technological revolutions, development of major civilizations, and overall significant transition towards urban living in the present. The human impact on modern-era Earth and its ecosystems may be considered of global ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elm Tree
Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical- montane regions of North America and Eurasia, presently ranging southward in the Middle East to Lebanon and Israel,Flora of Israel OnlineUlmus minor Mill. , Flora of Israel Online accessdate: July 28, 2020 and across the Equator in the Far East into Indonesia.Fu, L., Xin, Y. & Whittemore, A. (2002). Ulmaceae, in Wu, Z. & Raven, P. (eds) Flora of China'', Vol. 5 (Ulmaceae through Basellaceae). Science Press, Beijing, and Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis, US. Elms are components of many kinds of natural forests. Moreover, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, many species and cultivars were also planted as ornamental street, garden, and park trees in Europe, North America, and parts of the Southern Hemisphere, notably Australasia. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ash Tree
''Fraxinus'' (), commonly called ash, is a genus of flowering plants in the olive and lilac family, Oleaceae. It contains 45–65 species of usually medium to large trees, mostly deciduous, though a number of subtropical species are evergreen. The genus is widespread across much of Europe, Asia, and North America. The leaves are opposite (rarely in whorls of three), and mostly pinnately compound, though simple in a few species. The seeds, popularly known as "keys" or "helicopter seeds", are a type of fruit known as a samara. Some ''Fraxinus'' species are dioecious, having male and female flowers on separate plants but sex in ash is expressed as a continuum between male and female individuals, dominated by unisexual trees. With age, ash may change their sexual function from predominantly male and hermaphrodite towards femaleness ; if grown as an ornamental and both sexes are present, ashes can cause a considerable litter problem with their seeds. Rowans or mountain ashes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ostrya
''Ostrya'' is a genus of eight to 10 small deciduous trees belonging to the birch family Betulaceae. Common names include hop-hornbeam and hophornbeam. It may also be called ironwood, a name shared with a number of other plants. The genus is native in southern Europe, southwest and eastern Asia, and North and Central America. They have a conical or irregular crown and a scaly, rough bark. They have alternate and double-toothed birch-like leaves 3–10 cm long. The flowers are produced in spring, with male catkins 5–10 cm long and female aments 2–5 cm long. The fruit form in pendulous clusters 3–8 cm long with 6–20 seeds; each seed is a small nut 2–4 mm long, fully enclosed in a bladder-like involucre. The wood is very hard and heavy. The genus name ''Ostrya'' is derived from the Greek word (), which may be related to () "shell (of an animal)". Regarded as a weed tree by some foresters, this hard and stable wood was historically used to fas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sugar Maple
''Acer saccharum'', the sugar maple, is a species of flowering plant in the soapberry and lychee family Sapindaceae. It is native to the hardwood forests of eastern Canada and eastern United States. Sugar maple is best known for being the primary source of maple syrup and for its brightly colored fall foliage. It may also be known as "rock maple", "sugar tree", "birds-eye maple", "sweet maple", "curly maple", or "hard maple", particularly when referring to the wood. Description ''Acer saccharum'' is a deciduous tree normally reaching heights of , and exceptionally up to . A 10-year-old tree is typically about tall. As with most trees, forest-grown sugar maples form a much taller trunk and narrower canopy than open-growth ones. The leaves are deciduous, up to long and wide, palmate, with five lobes and borne in opposite pairs. The basal lobes are relatively small, while the upper lobes are larger and deeply notched. In contrast with the angular notching of the silver maple ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oak Tree
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably '' Lithocarpus'' (stone oaks), as well as in those of unrelated species such as '' Grevillea robusta'' (silky oaks) and the Casuarinaceae (she-oaks). The genus ''Quercus'' is native to the Northern Hemisphere, and includes deciduous and evergreen species extending from cool temperate to tropical latitudes in the Americas, Asia, Europe, and North Africa. North America has the largest number of oak species, with approximately 160 species in Mexico of which 109 are endemic and about 90 in the United States. The second greatest area of oak diversity is China, with approximately 100 species. Description Oaks have spirally arranged leaves, with lobate margins in many species; some have serrated leaves or entire leaves with smooth m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
