THE ORIGIN OF TWO GLACIAL RELICT CRUSTACEANS IN NORTH AMERICA, AS RELATED TO PLEISTOCENE GLACIATION

• Published in: Canadian Journal of Zoology
• Main Author: Ricker, Karl E.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Canadian Science Publishing 1959
• Subjects: Animal Science and Zoology; Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics; Arctic; Hudson Bay; Hudson; Foxe Basin; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/z59-085; http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/pdf/10.1139/z59-085

In North America Mysis relicta and Pontoporeia affinis occur almost exclusively in basins which were part of a proglacial lake during late glacial time. They also occur in arctic brackish waters, and arctic stocks can have served as the origin of all inland continental stocks provided the ice advanced originally from the northeast across such shallow seas as Foxe Basin and Hudson Bay—in the manner envisaged by Flint's recent hypothesis of how the continental ice sheet was established. On this view, the future relicts were carried across the continent in proglacial lakes as the ice advanced, as far as the Waterton Lakes in Alberta–Montana and the Finger Lakes in New York; during the retreat of the ice, they followed its margin back in a similar series of lakes, remaining in the survivors of the latter whenever they are deep and cold enough.