Canada has low biodiversity?

[TransformerRobot]

From what I've seen so far, Canada has the lowest biodiversity of most countries in the world.

 

Does it really?

 

If so, why do we have such low biodiversity?

[CharonY]

Which metrics did you use to assume that and what are the comparative scales? I.e. do you compare biodiversity say, per area unit or per country (that is, political borders)?

[krash661]

hmm,

 

yeah, please explain.

 

biodiversity-

range of organisms in envionment

[TransformerRobot]

What I mean is do we really have such a short range of animals in our environment?

 

If so, why? Is it because of our winters?

[krash661]

i have no clue, but maybe it's hemispherical.

 

where did you come across this ?

do you have a resource or something ?

this is kind of interesting.

[TransformerRobot]

http://rainforests.mongabay.com/03highest_biodiversity.htm?g_q=Countries%20ranked%20by%20biodiversity

[techhydra]

Biodiversity in general has declined worldwide since 1970 according to an article by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). If the study you read based their data off land mass and biodistribution I wouldn't doubt Canada as having a fairly low biodiversity ratio due to the northern regions which make life difficult for organisms without specialized traits.

[arc]

From what I've seen so far, Canada has the lowest biodiversity of most countries in the world.

 

Does it really?

 

If so, why do we have such low biodiversity?

This might help explain the current situation.

Image courtesy of USGS

 

Canada, so to speak started from scratch 20,000 years ago. The re-habitation of northern North America did not begin until the Laurentide ice sheet melted back from the coastal areas and its farthest reaches near the 38th latitude to the south in towards the interior. A process that may have taken a total of 10,000 years to remove the largest ice masses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurentide_ice_sheet

Its melting also caused major disruptions to the global climate cycle, because the huge influx of low-salinity water into the Arctic Ocean via the Mackenzie River is believed to have disrupted the formation of North Atlantic Deep Water, the very saline, cold, deep water that flows from the Greenland Sea. This interrupted the thermalhaline circulation, creating the brief Younger Dryas cold epoch and a temporary re-advance of the ice sheet, which did not retreat from Nunavik until 6,500 years ago.

 

This ice sheet just didn't cap the Canadian land area, the glacial movements scoured the soil down to bed rock in some areas. What you see today in soil biology, the foundation of Canada's biodiversity, is mostly what had to regenerate as plants regrew and reestablished an ecology probably quite different than was there 120,000 years ago before the ice came. arc

Edited June 9, 2013 by arc