Ecological regions of Quebec

Given the size of this huge province, there is wide variation from the temperate deciduous forests of the southwest to the arctic tundra of the extreme north.

[1] The climate in Quebec supports rich deciduous forest in the southern regions, and further north become progressively harsher.

Within a given bioclimatic domain the types of vegetation depend on soil, terrain features such as hilltops, slopes and valley floors, and disturbances such as fires, insect infestations and logging.

[2] The ministry publishes a map in which these sub-domains are in turn divided into ecological regions and subregions, and then into landscape units.

1998) All of the bedrock of Quebec north of the foothills of the Laurentian Mountains is the Canadian Shield, one of the oldest and most stable of geological formations in the world, with rocks from 600 million to 4 billion years old.

[5] The tills drain well due to their stones and abundant sand, but their richness in nutrients depends on their origins.

[4] The soil derived from the Shield is mostly acidic, lacking in nutrients such as calcium, stony and with fine particles that are mostly sand.

It includes several warm climate species, some at the northern limit of their range such as bitternut hickory (Carya cordiformis), shagbark hickory (Carya ovata), hackberries (Celtis), black maple (Acer nigrum), swamp white oak (Quercus bicolor), rock elm (Ulmus thomasii), pitch pine (Pinus rigida) and several shrubs and herbaceous plants.

On representative sites the yellow birch (Betula alleghaniensis) is one of the main companions to the sugar maple.

It also surrounds the Gaspé Peninsula and encompasses the Appalachian hills east of Quebec, the Laurentian foothills north of the Saint Lawrence, and the Lac Saint-Jean lowlands.

Typical sites have mixed stands of yellow birch and conifers such as balsam fir, white spruce (Picea glauca) and cedar.

In more marginal areas black spruce (Picea mariana), jack pine (Pinus banksiana) and tamarack (Larix laricina) often grow beside paper birch (Betula papyrifera) and trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides).

The western part of the domain is drier and has more frequent fires, resulting in more stands of species such as trembling aspen, white birch and jack pine.

Fires are the main factor in forest dynamics, and occur more frequently in the west, which has fewer fir trees than the east.

Shrubby heathland with shrubs and lichens has patches of forest in sheltered sites, mainly stunted black spruce less than 3 metres (10 ft) high.

[2] The tundra arctic shrubs domain extends roughly from 58° to 61° north and has continuous permafrost and landscapes shaped by periglaciation.

Dwarf willows and birches no more than 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) high grow beside herbaceous plants, mostly graminoids, mosses and lichens.

Patches of vegetation similar to this domain can be found on high peaks of southern Quebec on the Gaspé Peninsula and Monts Groulx.

[2] Bouleau River, Côte-Nord region, Minganie RCM, north shore of Gulf of St. Lawrence