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The Bunchgrass zone is the warmer of the two biogeoclimatic zones in British Columbia which lack trees. It is most commonly found in deeply incised valleys east of the Coast Mountains and within their rain shadow. Drought, not cold as in the Alpine Tundra (AT), minimizes forest or woodland development.
Biogeoclimatic ecosystem classification (BEC) [1] [2] is an ecological classification framework used in British Columbia to define, describe, and map ecosystem-based units at various scales, from broad, ecologically-based climatic regions down to local ecosystems or sites.
In Canada, the domination of red cedar and hemlock has led to the classification of the inland rainforest areas as belonging to the Interior Cedar-Hemlock Biogeoclimatic zone (ICH). In the United States, the inland rainforest regions are also classified as significant habitat types for western redcedar and western hemlock. [20]
In the United States, the EPA and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) are the principal federal agencies working with the CEC to define and map ecoregions. Ecoregions may be identified by similarities in geology , physiography , vegetation , climate , soils , land use , wildlife distributions, and hydrology .
British Columbia is the most biodiverse province with 18 ecoregions across 4 biomes. By contrast, Prince Edward Island is the least biodiverse with just one ecoregion - the Gulf of St. Lawrence lowland forests - encompassing the entire province.
The landforms of British Columbia include two major continental landforms, the Interior Plains in the province's northeast, the British Columbia portion of which is part of the Alberta Plateau. The rest of the province is part of the Western Cordillera of North America , often referred to in Canada as the Pacific Cordillera or Canadian Cordillera.
Four of British Columbia's biogeoclimatic zones are found within the park: Interior cedar/hemlock, Engelmann spruce/subalpine fir, Interior Douglas-fir in the eastern extremities, and alpine tundra at high elevations. [34] Parks Canada characterizes these zones as "rainforest, snow forest, and no forest".
This new ecozone map includes 18 terrestrial, 12 marine and 1 freshwater ecozone, the latter two of which were derived from the marine bioregions outlined by Fisheries and Oceans Canada in 2009. [8] [6] This comprehensive framework is currently in use by Environment and Climate Change Canada to determine protected area coverage of Canada's ...