Exploring Saskatchewan Biomes Biological & Biomedical Essay
A usual major part of this lab is to visit the Royal Saskatchewan Museum (RSM) in Regina to learn about Saskatchewan biomes. If you are able, you might want to do that, because the museum has many wonderful exhibits filled with lots of good information. It is the oldest museum in Saskatchewan, and houses material in the areas of archaeology, conservation, ecology and aboriginal life. In addition to exploring the RSM, you will need to find at least 3 other sources of information for your report. At this point, you should have a good idea about how to find good sources online, and how to reference them properly.As before, create your assignment as a Word file and set up the formatting as: double-spaced Arial 10 pt, with normal margins. Add page numbers. You should have a title for your paper, and you may use sub-heads. Do not include a cover page. Your paper should be between 1300 and 1700 words, not including references. You can include any visual information you choose.Introduction
The purpose of the Introduction is to give your readers some background information, and tell them in brief what you will be discussing in more detail in the body of the paper. You may wish to leave the Introduction until you have collected all your research material, or even until you have written the body of the paper. Suggested length: 350 words.
Body of the Paper - Part 1
The order is up to you, but you should cover these topics for the Prairie, Taiga, Boreal Shield and Boreal Plain biomes :
size, location in Saskatchewan, major communities, major water bodies
climate (temperature, wind, precipitation, photoperiod)
geography (landforms, soils, vegetation) and land use (e.g. farming, recreation)
plants and wildlife unique to the area*
any other interesting facts you find (optional)
suggested length: 500 words
*When you are writing about a species, use the common name (e.g. domestic cat) as well as the Latin name (e.g. Felis catus) upon first mention. Note that in the latter case, the first word is capitalized but the second is not, and both words are italicized. Thereafter, it is fine to refer to it using the common name.
Body of the Paper - Part 2
There are no specific facts or topics to cover for this part of the paper - it will depend on the research you do. Again, feel free to add any visual elements that illustrate the land changes and how these affected the first peoples of Canada. Suggested length: 500 words
A conclusion is not necessary.
The link is in my account i can give you id and password so you get online information on this assignment.
Exploring Saskatchewan Biomes
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Exploring Saskatchewan Biomes
There are extensive lands covered by forest cover in Canada. Approximately half the total land size in the country is covered by forest in an area of around 2.4 million km sq. Forest cover exists widely in eight provinces, Saskatchewan being one of them. Forest in Canada is zoned into different ecoregions that have similar characteristics. In Saskatchewan, forests cover an area of around 34 million hectares of land. The ecosystem in the region is represented at a locational level with 81 ecoregions. This paper explores characteristics of biomes in Saskatchewan’s four major ecozones comprising Prairie, Taiga shield, Boreal shield, and Boreal plain, and further investigates the effects of forest fire in Canada.
Prairie: Prairie is found in southern Saskatchewan along river Saskatchewan, including areas of Beaver Creek, Wanuskewin, Cranberry flats, and saskatoon natural grasslands. It covers an estimated area of 4.6 million hectares. The average precipitation of the region is 300-350mm annually. Most plants grow from May to July when the average rainfall is 150mm. The area experiences slightly low temperature compared to other provinces due to air masses. The zone is characterized majorly by brown and grey chernozem fertile soils. Grazing is the major type of activity in the region. Main plant communities in the area include dry mixed-grass prairie, mixed-grass prairie, Aspen Parkland, and tallgrass prairie. The unique plants are Wild Rose/Needle & Thread-Sand Grass-Low Sedge range type, Wheatgrass-Needle & Thread range type, Plains Rough Fescue-Western Porcupine grass range type, Western Porcupine grass – Plains Rough Fescue range type, Snowberry/ Northern Wheatgrass-Needle & thread range type, Riparian community in Parkland-Northern Fescue and Porcupine Grass-Sand Dropseed range type (Bailey et al., 2010).
Taiga shield: The ecozone is located in the northern regions of Saskatchewan province. Western part of this ecozone extends from Hudson Bay to Mackenzie valley and the eastern portion extends into Labrador. It’s the smallest ecozone in Saskatchewan, occupying an area of 4.7million hectares or 47000sq.km, which is approximately 7% of the provincial landmass (Padbury et al., 1998). Precambrian bedrock outcrops dominate the terrain. The soil is brunisolic in well-drained areas and greysolic soils in poorly drained parts. Its characterized by subarctic climate, with mean summer temperatures range between 6°C and 11°C, and mean winter temperatures range between -11°C and -24.5°C. Receives an annual precipitation range of 500 to 800 mm and long rains from July to September. The landscape consists of Selwyn lake and Tazin lake and wetlands that exist in depressions formed by glaciers. The vegetation consists of wetlands, shrublands, meadows, and open forests. Forest stands are associated with lichen woodlands. The lowland regions have bogs, black spruce (Picea mariana), and jack pine (Pinus banksiana), alder (Alnus glutinosa), and fens. Tree species are white spruce (Picea glauca), balsam fir (Abies balsamea), trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides), and balsam poplar (Populus balsamifera). Unique Wildlife in this region includes black bears (Ursus americanus), moose (Alces alces), red fox (Vulpes vulpes), caribou (Rangifer tarandus), lynxes (Lynx canadensis), grey wolf (Canis lupus), and red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris). The human activity in the shield is tourism, hunting, fishing, forestry, and recreation (1998).
Boreal shield: Boreal shield ecozone exists in the northern part of Saskatchewan with an area of 183,699 km sq, and water bodies covering 19.9 percent. It is bounded by Lake Athabasca, Lake Wollaston, and Black Lake. The terrain of Precambrian bedrock characterizes the region. Soils in t...