Insects of the Yukon: Characteristics and History

• Main Authors: H. V. Danks, J. A. Downes, D. J. Larson, G. G. E. Scudder
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Canada; Yukon; Subarctic; Tundra; Alaska; Beringia; Siberia
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.462.9224; http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/bsc/pdf/danksetal.pdf

Abstract. The Yukon Territory provides a setting for its fauna of particular historical and ecological interest. Much of the Yukon was unglaciated in Pleistocene time as part of Beringia, a much larger ice-free but essentially treeless area extending through Alaska into eastern Siberia, and this whole area was cut off from the rest of North America by ice sheets. After deglaciation the Yukon was again connected to the North American continent, allowing for movements by and contacts with other faunas. The Yukon today is a distinctly northern region dominated by arctic, alpine, subarctic and boreal terrain. Nevertheless, it is relatively benign for its latitude of 60 – 69°N, and habitat diversity is enhanced by the local amelioration of temperature on south-facing slopes and in river valleys. As a result of these past and current influences, the insect fauna of the Yukon is relatively rich and distinctive, reflecting the results of evolution on a variety of scales, and comprising distinctive forest, grassland, tundra and other species. The composition of the fauna reflects the current or past prevalence of particular habitats, such as boreal forest (which supports many widely distributed North American species), shallow still waters (which support many aquatic species) and dry grasslands on warm slopes (which support many leafhoppers and heteropterans, for example). The groups reported on in this book contain about one third of the known arachnid fauna of Canada and more than half of Canada’s insect fauna. In these groups, 297 species of spiders, 157 species of mites, and 2711 species of insects—or about one fifth of the Canadian species known in those groups—are recorded in the Yukon