Near Crane Lake, Boundary Waters, Minnesota, USA Photograph by A.I. Solyom   Central North America: Northern United States into Canada Temperate Broadleaf and Mixed Forests   105,800 square miles (274,000 square kilometers) -- about the size of Nevada Relatively Stable/Intact

· Life Along the Lakes
· Special Features
· Did You Know?
· Wild Side
· Cause for Concern
More Photos

Life Along the Lakes

From bald eagles to beavers and from wolves to woodchucks, the Western Great Lakes Forests are teeming with life. Many different types of forest, along with lakeshore habitat and other wetlands, make this ecoregion incredibly diverse and able to support an abundance of wildlife. It is home and refuge for many species that have been wiped out in other areas, such as gray wolves, martens, and lynx. And it is a place where you can still find old-growth forests, just as they existed hundreds of years ago.

Special Features

Both fire and ice have played important roles in the Western Great Lakes Forests ecoregion. The area was once covered entirely by glaciers, which, when they retreated at the end of the last Ice Age, created a variety of habitats and a rolling landscape with little change in elevation. In the forests, periodic fires help to maintain the presence of white pine and red oak trees as well as stands of spruce and balsam fir. Throughout the region, however, the greatest influence on climate and forest dynamics is probably the Great Lakes themselves, producing what is commonly called the "lake effect" on temperature and precipitation.

	Intensive logging of white and red pine between 1850 and 1900 and widespread fires allowed many pine forests to be replaced with red maple and light-seeded, wind-dispersed aspens and paper birch.

Wild Side

In this ecoregion, forests of quaking aspen, paper birch and jack pine dominate the high ground and give way to maple, beech, and hemlock in wetland areas. On Isle Royale, in Lake Superior, wolf pups learn to hunt beavers and white-tailed deer. Lynx, which are a threatened species and have been wiped out of much of their former range, find an abundance of snowshoe hares and other prey. High in the trees, huge pileated woodpeckers mark their territories by drumming loudly on hollow trees, while along the lakeshores, bald eagles find ample fishing. Virtually the entire summer range of Kirtland's warbler, one of the rarest of the wood warblers, is also found in this ecoregion. Throughout the year, the skies are constantly changing with the arrival and departure of birds along the southern shorelines of Lake Superior and Lake Huron, important migratory stopover points and major breeding areas. The lakeshores are also important areas of aquatic insect diversity, while estuaries serve as important fish hatcheries for Great Lakes fisheries.

Cause for Concern

Unfortunately, you would have to travel to remote areas in the northernmost reaches of this ecoregion to find forests that look like they did hundreds of years ago. Over the years, most of the original mature white and red pine forests have been logged to supply wood for a variety of uses. After logging, the forests have been replaced by younger stands of birch and aspen trees with only scattered pines. In this way, logging has changed the face of this ecoregion and caused major alterations in its biodiversity. In addition, extensive areas throughout the ecoregion have been converted to agricultural production and are increasingly being developed for new housing.

For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report.