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Bioregion
A bioregion is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a biogeographic realm, but larger than an ecoregion or an ecosystem, in the World Wide Fund for Nature classification scheme. There is also an attempt to use the term in a rank-less generalist sense, similar to the terms "biogeographic area" or "biogeographic unit". It may be conceptually similar to an ecoprovince. It is also differently used in the environmentalist context, being coined by Berg and Dasmann (1977). WWF bioregions The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) scheme divides some of the biogeographic realms into bioregions, defined as "geographic clusters of ecoregions that may span several habitat types, but have strong biogeographic affinities, particularly at taxonomic levels higher than the species level (genus, family)." The WWF bioregions are as follows: *Afrotropical realm ** Western Africa and Sahel **Central Africa ** Eastern and Southern Africa **Horn of Africa **Madagascar– ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nearctic Realm
The Nearctic realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting the Earth's land surface. The Nearctic realm covers most of North America, including Greenland, Central Florida, and the highlands of Mexico. The parts of North America that are not in the Nearctic realm are Eastern Mexico, Southern Florida, coastal Central Florida, Central America, and the Caribbean islands, which, together with South America, are part of the Neotropical realm. Major ecological regions The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) divides the Nearctic into four bioregions, defined as "geographic clusters of ecoregions that may span several habitat types, but have strong biogeographic affinities, particularly at taxonomic levels higher than the species level (genus, family)." Canadian Shield The Canadian Shield bioregion extends across the northern portion of the continent, from the Aleutian Islands to Newfoundland. It includes the Nearctic's Arctic Tundra and Boreal forest ecoregions. In terms of fl ... [...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. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indomalayan Realm
The Indomalayan realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms. It extends across most of South and Southeast Asia and into the southern parts of East Asia. Also called the Oriental realm by biogeographers, Indomalaya spreads all over the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia to lowland southern China, and through Indonesia as far as Sumatra, Java, Bali, and Borneo, east of which lies the Wallace line, the realm boundary named after Alfred Russel Wallace which separates Indomalaya from Australasia. Indomalaya also includes the Philippines, lowland Taiwan, and Japan's Ryukyu Islands. Most of Indomalaya was originally covered by forest, and includes tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, with tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests predominant in much of India and parts of Southeast Asia. The tropical forests of Indomalaya are highly variable and diverse, with economically important trees, especially in the families Dipterocarpaceae and Fabaceae. Major ec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biogeographic Realm
A biogeographic realm or ecozone is the broadest biogeographic division of Earth's land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial organisms. They are subdivided into bioregions, which are further subdivided into ecoregions. Description The realms delineate large areas of Earth's surface within which organisms have evolved in relative isolation over long periods of time, separated geographic features, such as oceans, broad deserts, or high mountain ranges, that constitute natural barriers to migration. As such, biogeographic realm designations are used to indicate general groupings of organisms based on their shared biogeography. Biogeographic realms correspond to the floristic kingdoms of botany or zoogeographic regions of zoology. From 1872, Alfred Russel Wallace developed a system of zoogeographic regions, extending the ornithologist Philip Sclater's system of six regions. Biogeographic realms are characterized by the evolutionary history of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Madrean Region
The Madrean Region (named after the Sierra Madre Occidental) is a floristic region within the Holarctic Kingdom in North America, as delineated by Armen Takhtajan and Robert F. Thorne. It occupies arid or semiarid areas in the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico and is bordered by the Rocky Mountain Region and North American Atlantic Region of the Holarctic Kingdom in the north and in the east, Caribbean Region of the Neotropical Kingdom in the south. The Madrean Region is characterized by a very distinct flora with at least three endemic families (Fouquieriaceae, Simmondsiaceae, and Setchellanthaceae). Crossosomataceae, Garryaceae, Lennoaceae, Limnanthaceae and Stegnospermataceae have their principal development here; for Onagraceae, Polemoniaceae and Hydrophyllaceae it is the major center of diversity. More than 250 genera and probably more than half of the species of the region are endemic to it according to Takhtajan. Floristic provinces The region ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mainland Southeast Asia
Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west and the Pacific Ocean to the east. It includes the countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, with peninsular Malaysia sometimes also being included. The term Indochina (originally Indo-China) was coined in the early nineteenth century, emphasizing the historical cultural influence of Indian and Chinese civilizations on the area. The term was later adopted as the name of the colony of French Indochina (today's Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam). Today, the term, Mainland Southeast Asia, in contrast to Maritime Southeast Asia, is more commonly referenced. Terminology The origins of the name Indo-China are usually attributed jointly to the Danish-French geographer Conrad Malte-Brun, who referred to the area as in 1804, and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean. Because it is on the North American Tectonic Plate, Greenland is included as a part of North America geographically. North America covers an area of about , about 16.5% of Earth's land area and about 4.8% of its total surface. North America is the third-largest continent by area, following Asia and Africa, and the fourth by population after Asia, Africa, and Europe. In 2013, its population was estimated at nearly 579 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7.5% of the world's population. In human geography and in the English-speaking world outside the United States, particularly in Canada, "North America" and "North American" can refer to just Canada and the Uni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canadian Shield
The Canadian Shield (french: Bouclier canadien ), also called the Laurentian Plateau, is a geologic shield, a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks. It forms the North American Craton (or Laurentia), the ancient geologic core of the North American continent. Glaciation has left the area with only a thin layer of soil, through which exposures of igneous bedrock resulting from its long volcanic history are frequently visible. As a deep, common, joined bedrock region in eastern and central Canada, the Shield stretches north from the Great Lakes to the Arctic Ocean, covering over half of Canada and most of Greenland; it also extends south into the northern reaches of the United States. Geographical extent The Canadian Shield is a physiographic division comprising four smaller physiographic provinces: the Laurentian Upland, Kazan Region, Davis and James. The shield extends into the United States as the Adirondack Mountains (connected by the F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Islands Of The Philippines
The islands of the Philippines, also known as the Philippine Archipelago, comprises about 7,641 islands, of which only about 2,000 are inhabited.Magical Islands , Philippine Tourism, retrieved 2012 More than 5,000 islands of the archipelago are yet to be given official names. They are clustered into the three major island groups of , , and |
Sunda Shelf
Geologically, the Sunda Shelf is a south-eastern extension of the continental shelf of Mainland Southeast Asia. Major landmasses on the shelf include the Bali, Borneo, Java, Madura, and Sumatra, as well as their surrounding smaller islands. It covers an area of approximately 1.85 million km2.va Bemmelen, R.W. (1949). ''The Geology of Indonesia.'' Vol. IA'': General Geology of Indonesia and Adjacent Archipelagoes.'' Matinus Nithoff, The Hague, 723 pp. Sea depths over the shelf rarely exceed 50 metres and extensive areas are less than 20 metres resulting in strong bottom friction and strong tidal friction. Steep undersea gradients separate the Sunda Shelf from the Philippines, Sulawesi, and the Lesser Sunda Islands. Definition Biogeographically, Sundaland is a term for the region of Southeastern Asia which encompasses these areas of the Asian continental shelf that were exposed during the last ice age. Sundaland included the Malay Peninsula on the Asian mainland, as well as th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indian Subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka."Indian subcontinent". ''New Oxford Dictionary of English'' () New York: Oxford University Press, 2001; p. 929: "the part of Asia south of the Himalayas which forms a peninsula extending into the Indian Ocean, between the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. Historically forming the whole territory of Greater India, the region is now divided into three countries named Bangladesh, India and Pakistan." The terms ''Indian subcontinent'' and ''South Asia'' are often used interchangeably to denote the region, although the geopolitical term of South Asia frequently includes Afghanistan, which may otherwise be classified as Central Asian.John McLeod, The history of India', page 1, Greenwood Publishing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wallacea
Wallacea is a biogeographical designation for a group of mainly Indonesian islands separated by deep-water straits from the Asian and Australian continental shelves. Wallacea includes Sulawesi, the largest island in the group, as well as Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Sumba, Timor, Halmahera, Buru, Seram, and many smaller islands. The islands of Wallacea lie between the Sunda Shelf (the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, and Bali) to the west, and the Sahul Shelf including Australia and New Guinea to the south and east. The total land area of Wallacea is . Geography Wallacea is defined as the series of islands stretching between the two continental shelves of Sunda and Sahul, but excluding the Philippines. Its eastern border (separating Wallacea from Sahul) is represented by a zoogeographical boundary known as Lydekker's Line, while the Wallace Line (separating Wallacea from Sunda) defines its western border. The Weber Line is the midpoint, at which Asian and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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