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Ecoregions Of Western Sahara
The following is a list of ecoregions in Western Sahara, according to the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF). Terrestrial ecoregions Palearctic Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub * Mediterranean Acacia-Argania dry woodlands, Mediterranean acacia-argania dry woodlands and succulent thickets Deserts and xeric shrublands * Atlantic coastal desert * North Saharan steppe and woodlands Freshwater ecoregions * Dry Sahel * Permanent Maghreb * Temporary Maghreb Marine ecoregions * Saharan Upwelling References * Burgess, Neil, Jennifer D’Amico Hales, Emma Underwood (2004). ''Terrestrial Ecoregions of Africa and Madagascar: A Conservation Assessment''. Island Press, Washington DC. * Spalding, Mark D., Helen E. Fox, Gerald R. Allen, Nick Davidson ''et al.'' "Marine Ecoregions of the World: A Bioregionalization of Coastal and Shelf Areas". ''Bioscience'' Vol. 57 No. 7, July/August 2007, pp. 573-583. * Thieme, Michelle L. (2005). ''Freshwater Ecoregions of Africa and Madagascar: A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecoregion
An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural communities and species. The biodiversity of flora, fauna and ecosystems that characterise an ecoregion tends to be distinct from that of other ecoregions. In theory, biodiversity or conservation ecoregions are relatively large areas of land or water where the probability of encountering different species and communities at any given point remains relatively constant, within an acceptable range of variation (largely undefined at this point). Three caveats are appropriate for all bio-geographic mapping approaches. Firstly, no single bio-geographic framework is optimal for all taxa. Ecoregions reflect the best compromise for as many taxa as possible. Se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Sahara
Western Sahara ( '; ; ) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while the remaining 80% of the territory is military occupation, occupied and administered by neighboring Morocco. Its surface area amounts to . It is one of the List of sovereign states and dependent territories by population density, most sparsely populated territories in the world, mainly consisting of desert flatlands. The population is estimated at just over 500,000, of which nearly 40% live in Laayoune, the largest city in Western Sahara. Occupied by Spain until 1975, Western Sahara has been on the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories since 1963 after a Moroccan demand. It is the most populous territory on that list, and by far the largest in area. In 1965, the United Nations General Assembly adopted its first resolution on Wes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Worldwide Fund For Nature
The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States. WWF is the world's largest conservation organization, with over five million supporters worldwide, working in more than 100 countries and supporting around 3,000 conservation and environmental projects. They have invested over $1 billion in more than 12,000 conservation initiatives since 1995. WWF is a foundation with 65% of funding from individuals and bequests, 17% from government sources (such as the World Bank, DFID, and USAID) and 8% from corporations in 2020. WWF aims to "stop the degradation of the planet's natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature." The Living Planet Report has been published every two yea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palearctic
The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Siberian region; the Mediterranean Basin; the Sahara and Arabian Deserts; and Western, Central and East Asia. The Palaearctic realm also has numerous rivers and lakes, forming several freshwater ecoregions. The term 'Palearctic' was first used in the 19th century, and is still in use as the basis for zoogeographic classification. History In an 1858 paper for the ''Proceedings of the Linnean Society'', British zoologist Philip Sclater first identified six terrestrial zoogeographic realms of the world: Palaearctic, Aethiopian/Afrotropic, Indian/Indomalayan, Australasian, Nearctic, and Neotropical. The six indicated general groupings of fauna, based on shared biogeography and large-scale geographic barriers to migration. Alfred Wallace a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mediterranean Forests, Woodlands, And Scrub
Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub is a biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. The biome is generally characterized by dry summers and rainy winters, although in some areas rainfall may be uniform. Summers are typically hot in low-lying inland locations but can be cool near colder seas. Winters are typically mild to cool in low-lying locations but can be cold in inland and higher locations. All these ecoregions are highly distinctive, collectively harboring 10% of the Earth's plant species. Distribution The Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome mostly occurs in, but not limited to, the Mediterranean climate zones, in the mid-latitudes: *the Mediterranean Basin *the Chilean Matorral *the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion of California and the Baja California Peninsula *the Western Cape of South Africa *the southwest and southern Australia. The biome is not limited to the Mediterranean climate zone. It can also be present in other c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mediterranean Acacia-Argania Dry Woodlands
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The Sea has played a central role in the history of Western civilization. Geological evidence indicates that around 5.9 million years ago, the Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic and was partly or completely desiccated over a period of some 600,000 years during the Messinian salinity crisis before being refilled by the Zanclean flood about 5.3 million years ago. The Mediterranean Sea covers an area of about , representing 0.7% of the global ocean surface, but its connection to the Atlantic via the Strait of Gibraltar—the narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates the Iberian Peninsula in Europe from Morocco in Africa—is only wide. The Mediterranean Sea enc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deserts And Xeric Shrublands
Deserts and xeric shrublands are a biome defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Deserts and xeric (ancient Greek xērós, “dry") shrublands form the largest terrestrial biome, covering 19% of Earth's land surface area. Ecoregions in this habitat type vary greatly in the amount of annual rainfall they receive, usually less than annually except in the margins. Generally evaporation exceeds rainfall in these ecoregions. Temperature variability is also diverse in these lands. Many deserts, such as the Sahara, are hot year-round, but others, such as East Asia's Gobi, become quite cold in winter. Temperature extremes are a characteristic of most deserts. High daytime temperatures give way to cold nights because there is no insulation provided by humidity and cloud cover. The diversity of climatic conditions, though quite harsh, supports a rich array of habitats. Many of these habitats are ephemeral in nature, reflecting the paucity and seasonality of available water. Woody-ste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atlantic Coastal Desert
The Atlantic coastal desert is the westernmost ecoregion in the Sahara Desert of North Africa. It occupies a narrow strip along the Atlantic coast, where the more frequent fog and haze generated offshore by the cool Canary Current provides sufficient moisture to sustain a variety of lichens, succulents, and shrubs. Geography It covers in Western Sahara and Mauritania. It is bounded on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, on the east by the North Saharan steppe and woodlands, on the north by the Mediterranean Acacia-Argania dry woodlands, and on the south by the Sahelian Acacia savanna. Climate The cool ocean current gives an even higher atmospheric stability in the desert, by cooling air at the base. This increase in atmospheric stability serves to further reduce the amount of rainfall. Therefore, the climate is extremely dry with some 30 mm of annual precipitation in Dakhla, Western Sahara and 40 mm of annual precipitation in Nouadhibou, Mauritania. Several years may pass w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Saharan Steppe And Woodlands
The North Saharan steppe and woodlands is a desert ecoregion, in the deserts and xeric shrublands biome, that forms the northern edge of the Sahara. It extends east and west across Northern Africa, south of the Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe ecoregion of the Maghreb and Cyrenaica, which is part of the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome. Winter rains sustain shrublands and dry woodlands that form an ecotone between the Mediterranean climate regions to the north and the hyper-arid Sahara Desert ecoregion to the south. Geography The North Saharan steppe and woodlands covers in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, and Western Sahara. Climate The climate in this ecoregion is hot and dry in the summer but cooler with some rain in the winter. Atlantic depressions sometimes penetrate inland between October and April. Rainfall is erratic, but averages in the north and in the south. During the summer, temperatures regularly rise to and evapo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dry Sahel
The Sahel (; ar, ساحل ' , "coast, shore") is a region in North Africa. It is defined as the ecoclimatic and biogeographic realm of transition between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south. Having a hot semi-arid climate, it stretches across the south-central latitudes of Northern Africa between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea. The Sahel part of Africa includes – from west to east – parts of northern Senegal, southern Mauritania, central Mali, northern Burkina Faso, the extreme south of Algeria, Niger, the extreme north of Nigeria, Cameroon and Central African Republic, central Chad, central and southern Sudan, the extreme north of South Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia. Historically, the western part of the Sahel was sometimes known as the Sudan region (''bilād as-sūdān'' "lands of the Sudan"). This belt was located between the Sahara and the coastal areas of West Africa. There are frequent shortages of food and water due to the dry h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Permanent Maghreb
The Permanent Maghreb of World Wide Fund for Nature is a freshwater ecoregion of North Africa. Geography The Permanent Maghreb ecoregion covers an area of 950,180 square kilometers, and extends across the portions of Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, and Western Sahara. It occupies the Mediterranean climate region of northern Africa, and is characterized by rivers and streams which flow on the surface year-round. The ecoregion is bounded on the north by the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, and to the south by the Temporary Maghreb freshwater ecoregion, which covers the northern portion of the Sahara and is characterized by temporary or seasonally-flowing rivers and streams. The WWF divides the ecoregion into two. Atlantic Northwest Africa lies in northwestern Africa, covering most of Morocco and Western Sahara and portions of Mauritania and Algeria. The ecoregion covers the western Atlas Mountains complex, including the Anti-Atlas to the west, the High Atlas, the Mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
