Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Manitoba is regarded as one of the Prairie Provinces, though only the southwestern extremity is occupied by actual prairie (Shay, 1984). Northward, the prairie gives way to aspen parkland, a major transitional zone between prairie and western broad-leafed deciduous forests of Populus, Quercus, Alnus, Acer and Betula (Fig. 1) (Shay, 1984). This is followed by the boreal forest, or circumpolar coniferous forest, characterized by bogs, and which consists of four zones progressing northward: 1) mixed deciduous and coniferous forest; 2) taiga or northern coniferous forest associated with discontinuous or continuous permafrost and with some small stands of aspen and birch along the rivers; 3) taiga-tundra transition, an area with continuous permafrost and poor drainage, typified by scattered black spruce and shrubs; 4) subarctic forest-tundra, a woodland of sparse and stunted trees on continuous permafrost. In the extreme northeast, along the Hudson Bay coast, is an area of arctic tundra, characterized by permafrost and low vegetation (Fig. 1) (Lehmkuhl, 1980; Shay, 1984; Danks & Foottit, 1989).
Figure 1: The vegetation zones of Manitoba (after Shay, 1984).
During the last glaciation, Manitoba was completely covered by an ice sheet; 12,000 years ago the ice began to retreat from the southwest corner of the province, where we now have prairie (Scudder, 1979; Shay, 1984). About 6000 BP the prairie biome extended up to 54°N in the western part of the province, far north of its present northern limit (Scudder, 1979; Shay, 1984), allowing entry of many species from the south. The current ranges of spiders reflect these shifts of biotic communities since that time, with all the flora and fauna being relatively young and spreading from various glacial refugia lying to the east, west, or south, since the last glaciation (Lehmkuhl, 1980).
The following new synonyms are proposed in the list. They are based on our recent research on the Manitoba fauna and are grouped here in brief form for the convenience of cataloguers: