Eastern Great Lakes and Hudson Lowlands Ecoregion

The Eastern Great Lakes and Hudson Lowlands region extends along the south shores of

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( ) is the fourth-largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and also has the shortest avera ...

and

Lake Ontario Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. The Canada–United Sta ...

and the

St. Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (, ) is a large international river in the middle latitudes of North America connecting the Great Lakes to the North Atlantic Ocean. Its waters flow in a northeasterly direction from Lake Ontario to the Gulf of St. Lawren ...

Lake Champlain Lake Champlain ( ; , ) is a natural freshwater lake in North America. It mostly lies between the U.S. states of New York (state), New York and Vermont, but also extends north into the Canadian province of Quebec. The cities of Burlington, Ve ...

, and south down the

Hudson River The Hudson River, historically the North River, is a river that flows from north to south largely through eastern New York (state), New York state. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains at Henderson Lake (New York), Henderson Lake in the ...

. It is primarily within the state of

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

, with smaller portions in

Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

, and

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

. In the north it meets the Mixedwood Plains Ecozone of Canada in eastern Ontario and southern Quebec. It is mostly

temperate deciduous forest Temperate deciduous or temperate broadleaf forests are a variety of temperate forest 'dominated' by deciduous trees that lose their leaves each winter. They represent one of Earth's major biomes, making up 9.69% of global land area. These forests ...

and agricultural land. It is one of the 104 Level III ecoregions that occur within the United States, and one of the 35 that comprise the Eastern Temperate Forest Level 1 Ecoregion. This classification system was developed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Description

This region was glaciated during the last ice age, and contains prominent glacial features including till and drumlins, as well as the valleys containing the Finger Lakes. Part of the area was covered by

Glacial Lake Iroquois Glacial Lake Iroquois was a prehistoric proglacial lake that existed at the end of the last ice age approximately 13,000 years ago. Description The lake was essentially an enlargement of the present Lake Ontario that formed because the St. ...

, while regions further to the east were flooded under the

Champlain Sea The Champlain Sea () was a prehistoric inlet of the Atlantic Ocean into the North American continent, created by the retreating ice sheets during the closure of the last glacial period. The inlet once included lands in what are now the Canadi ...

. At one point during the melting of the glaciers, the Great Lakes drained down the Hudson River to the Atlantic Ocean.

Natural history

This area is mostly

, dominated by trees including maple, beech and oak. Unlike forests further to the north, southern tree species such as hickory also occur (see Bitternut hickory and Shagbark hickory). Many other plant and animal species reach their northern limits in this ecoregion. A few more examples follow. The wetland plant, arrow arum (''

Peltandra virginica ''Peltandra virginica'' is a plant of the arum family known as green arrow arum and tuckahoe. It is widely distributed in wetlands in the eastern United States, as well as in Quebec, Ontario, and Cuba.Whigham, Dennis F., Robert L. Simpson and Ma ...

'') reaches the St. Lawrence River and the Richelieu River. The bog turtle (''Clemmys muhlenbergii'') reaches the southern shores of Lake Ontario, while the

eastern box turtle The eastern box turtle (''Terrapene carolina carolina'') is a subspecies within a group of hinge-shelled turtles normally called box turtles. ''T. c. carolina'' is native to the Eastern United States. The eastern box turtle is a subspec ...

reaches the southern shores of Lake Erie. Along the shores of the lakes and rivers, there are significant areas of

wetland A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

, principally marshes and swamps. Some of the many significant natural areas include El Dorado Beach Preserve on Lake Ontario, the Chaumont Barrens alvar grassland, and the Rome Sand Plains. Large areas of this forest have been cleared for agriculture, particularly dairy farms and row crops. The presence of the Great Lakes moderates the climate, but increases snowfall. Major cities in this region include Cleveland, Erie, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Albany.

Ecoregion classification

There can be some problems with understanding the naming of this ecological region, since the Canadian government has its own classification system of ecozones, which can have different names. In this case, the Mixedwood Plains occur on the Canadian side of the border while the Eastern Great Lakes and Hudson Lowlands occur on the American side. Hence, the

Commission for Environmental Cooperation The Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC; ; ) is an intergovernmental organization established by Canada, Mexico, and the United States to implement the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), the environmental si ...

has worked toward giving each ecological region of North America a consistent name. In the CEC system, this ecoregion is named the Eastern Great Lakes and Hudson Lowlands, and is identified as region 8.1.1. In the west it meets ecoregion 8.1.2, the Lake Erie Lowland. In the east it meets 5.3.1, the North Appalachian and Atlantic Maritime Highlands. In northern New York, there are two high altitude areas, one being the Adirondacks, that are colder and so fall within ecoregion 5.3.1. In addition the World Wildlife Fund developed its own classification system, in which much of this region is called the Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests.

References

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Images

File:Lakes Erie and Ontario - satellite.jpg, Lake Ontario and the Eastern Great Lakes and Hudson Lowlands from a satellite. Note dark green of Adirondack forests to right. Image:Late Fall in the Adirondack Mountains.jpg, Satellite image of the region during late autumn. Image:New York Relief 1.jpg, This relief map shows the lowlands in the centre of this ecoregion, and the

Mohawk Valley The Mohawk Valley region of the U.S. state of New York is the area surrounding the Mohawk River, sandwiched between the Adirondack Mountains and Catskill Mountains, northwest of the Capital District. As of the 2010 United States Census, ...

linking to the Hudson River. File:Erie Canal on openstreetmap.png, Current route of the Erie Canal. File:Canadice Lake in the Finger Lakes .jpg, Canadice Lake is one of the Finger Lakes. It is surrounded by the Hemlock-Canadice State Forest. Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests in the United States Ecoregions of the United States Plant communities of New York (state) Regions of New York (state)