Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
August 1992
Abstract
Alberta is a province with diverse geography, climate, and ecology. Encompassing level prairies, gently sloping hills, and the high mountains of the eastern slope of the Rockies, it provides outstanding scenery as well as productive farming and extensive mineral production. Its variable climate provides short, hot summers and long, cold winters. A relatively high level of rainfall (and snowfall) provides an abundance of running and standing water habitats, including four major rivers (Milk, Saskatchewan, Athabasca, and Peace), two large lakes (Athabasca and Lesser Slave), and many smaller lakes and prairie potholes. This physical diversity has provided environmental features that enable a diversified fauna to become well established. This study is the result of the devotion of one scientist and his students that spans more than two decades. Hugh Clifford knows Alberta's aquatic invertebrate fauna intimately. He has compiled an impressive book treating the known species.
Comments
Published in Great Plains Research 2:2 (August 1992), pp. 304-305. Copyright © 1992 The Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Used by permission. http://www.unl.edu/plains/publications/GPR/gpr.shtml