Minnesota Sesquicentennial Capital for a Day Biomes
"Biome" is a term used to describe a biological community. Usually, biomes occur over large areas and include many similar plant communities and the animals that live in them. Minnesota is unique in that three major biomes come together here from across the North American continent.
Coniferous forest description
The coniferous forest is the largest of the state's three biomes. It covers two-fifths of the state, including the north central and northeastern regions. Once mountainous, this rugged area claims both the highest and lowest points in the state.
Glaciers sculpted this landscape, leaving relatively thin deposits of till blanketing the bedrock in the northeast and deeper deposits in the southern and western portions. Boulders, outcrops, hills, numerous lakes, bogs, and vast tracts of forest land comprise Minnesota's scenic and much beloved "up north." The state's iron ranges also occur here, along with many other Precambrian rocks and well-exposed lava flows. Dense forests occupy the uplands, with bedrock lakes in the northeast, ice block lakes in the south and west, and large, open peatlands in lower areas.
Deciduous woods description
The deciduous woods is a species-rich extension of the eastern deciduous forest, with numerous plant species occurring here at the very western edge of their range. The deciduous woods landscape includes the forests of southeastern Minnesota and extends through the prairie-coniferous transitional zone, up to the Aspen Parkland in northwestern Minnesota.
The Big Woods--an area of dense forest characterized by maple-basswood forests--represent the peak of deciduous forest development. Minnesota had extensive stands of this woodland community at the time of European settlement. Today only a tiny fraction remains. Common tree species in Deciduous Woods include sugar maple, basswood, various oak types, ironwood, elm, hickory, butternut, birch, and aspen.
During the last period of glaciation, the ice sheet sculpted portions of this geologically unique landscape, but missed the southeastern "driftless" portion. Most of the region's geological character is glacial, including glacial moraines, the Mississippi River Valley and its sand plain outwash, and the St. Croix River with its valley, kames, and kettle lakes. Also included is the Twin Cities metro area, cupped in a gently sloped basin formed of Paleozoic sedimentary rocks. Channels of pre-glacial rivers cut through these formations, then were filled by glacial till that later settled, forming the chains of lakes that meander through the cities.
The driftless area in southeastern Minnesota features caves, ravines, and sinkholes, with clear, spring-fed trout streams coursing through the steep and hilly countryside.
Prairie grasslands description
Imagine a kaleidoscope of color that shifts with the seasons: the smoky haze of pasque flowers in spring, the purple of blazing star and deep orange of butterfly weed in hot midsummer, the red-gold of raspy grasses in fall, the white sparkle of frost on straw-colored grasses in winter.
This is the prairie palette that marked the seasons for native peoples of long ago, when vast grasslands spread from the northwestern to the southeastern tips of the state. These grasslands ranged from sparsely vegetated sand dunes to vast fields of big bluestem up to eight feet tall, from low, wet sedge meadows to short-grass prairies high on the bluffs of the Mississippi River. Bison and elk roamed the plains, and prairie birds such as the upland sandpiper and sandhill crane were plentiful.
With the advent of European settlement, much of the flat and fertile prairie land fell to the settler's plow. Now, just a century and a half later, only one percent (about 150,000 acres) of the original 18 million acres of prairie remains. Urban sprawl, agricultural expansion, and gravel mining continue to threaten this rich resource. As natural prairie habitats dwindle, so too, do the species of prairie mammals, birds, and insects. At one time, prairie birds--marbled godwits, upland sandpipers, sprague's pipits, chestnut collared longspurs, bobolinks, meadowlarks, kingbirds--were numerous. Waterfowl covered the marshes; bison roamed the western areas, and elk and deer were common. Protection is critical if this complex ecosystem, with its shifting array of color and form, is to survive into the future.
More information is available about Minnesota’s biomes at http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/snas/index.html and http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/biomes/index.html