**13. References**

254 Biodiversity Conservation and Utilization in a Diverse World

The last Neoglacial event ended about 110 years ago with the development of the presentday distribution of air masses (Figure 1), resulting in a minor change in temperature, but important changes in precipitation. There was a marked reduction in precipitation in the Eastern Cordillera, causing the vegetation that required more moisture to become limited to the high precipitation areas around Lake Louise (Harris, 2012). After 1943, the precipitation on the Canadian Prairies increased, and the sand dune field has largely become stabilized, though it is now used for irrigation farming. Grassland species such as the Prairie Swift Fox, the Sage Grouse and Black-Footed Ferret have almost been extirpated on the Canadian Prairies. In the last 500 years, the European settlers have gradually modified the landscape, starting in the east and south as well as at isolated coastal regions in the west. This has had an enormous effect on the biota, especially by destruction of habitat. An additional factor is the importation of species from other countries, especially Europe. Forty percent of the flora of Nova Scotia is from elsewhere (Zinck, 1998). Ships discharging water into North American waterways that is used as ballast are introducing fresh water fish and mollusks, e.g., the Zebra Mussel into the rivers and lakes. These then devastate the indigenous species.

Until the advent of European settlement, climatic changes and diastrophism essentially determined the biodiversity of the biota of North America. The species found today evolved in the last 6 million years in response to the marked cooling of the continent. There had been limited immigration of present-day species from Asia and South America, and little exchange with Europe. The alternating major warm and cold events caused repeated massive migrations latitudinally and altitudinally, unless a given species was fortunate enough to survive in a refugium. Species that could not adapt or migrate quickly enough were extirpated. The climatic changes also resulted in speciation in the vascular flora, though not in many of the insect groups. Speciation in most of the latter takes more time than the duration of most climatic major warm or cold events. This has resulted in a primarily endemic biota that is able to disperse into new environments rapidly. The exceptions are mainly found in the southwest United States on isolated mountain ranges currently surrounded by deserts. Of particular note is the split in the biota of the more humid regions at lower latitudes into eastern and western groups separated by the central semi-arid plains. This split is the result of the early glacial history of the continent. Clearly, the biota of North America has had a unique history that is significantly different to that of

**11. Post-Neoglacial changes** 

**12. Conclusion** 

the other continents.

**Author details** 

*Department of Geography, University of Calgary, Canada* 

Stuart A. Harris


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**Section 5** 

**Health and Humanity** 

