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Xeric
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-stemm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baja California Desert
The Baja California Desert ( es, Desierto de Baja California) is a desert ecoregion of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula. This ecoregion occupies the western portion of the Baja California peninsula, and occupies most of the Mexican states of Baja California Sur and Baja California. It covers 77,700 square kilometers (30,000 square miles). The climate is dry, but its proximity of the Pacific Ocean provides humidity and moderates the temperature. The flora mostly consists of xeric shrubs and over 500 species of recorded vascular plants. Geography The Baja California Desert ecoregion lies on the western portion of the Baja California Peninsula and occupies most of the Mexican states of Baja California and Baja California Sur. The ecoregion covers 77,700 square kilometers (30,000 square miles) and includes most of the Peninsula's western slope. It is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the east by the Peninsular Ranges, and extends from approximately 31º to 24º north ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carnarvon Xeric Shrublands
The Carnarvon xeric shrublands is a deserts and xeric shrublands ecoregion of Western Australia. The ecoregion is coterminous with the Carnarvon Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) bioregion.IBRA Version 6.1 data Location and description The ecoregion covers an area of 90,500 square kilometers (34,900 square miles) from the bounded by the to the west from the in up to the |
Sahara Desert
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Sonoran Desert
The Sonoran Desert ( es, Desierto de Sonora) is a desert in North America and ecoregion that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the southwestern United States (in Arizona and California). It is the hottest desert in both Mexico and the United States. It has an area of . In phytogeography, the Sonoran Desert is within the Sonoran Floristic province of the Madrean Region of southwestern North America, part of the Holarctic realm of the northern Western Hemisphere. The desert contains a variety of unique endemic plants and animals, notably, the saguaro (''Carnegiea gigantea'') and organ pipe cactus (''Stenocereus thurberi''). The Sonoran Desert is clearly distinct from nearby deserts (e.g., the Great Basin, Mojave, and Chihuahuan deserts) because it provides subtropical warmth in winter and two seasons of rainfall (in contrast, for example, to the Mojave's dry summers and cold winters). This creat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xeriscaping
Xeriscaping is the process of Garden design, landscaping, or gardening, that reduces or eliminates the need for irrigation. It is promoted in regions that do not have accessible, plentiful, or reliable supplies of fresh water and has gained acceptance in other regions as access to irrigation water has become limited, though it is not limited to such climates. Xeriscaping may be an alternative to various types of traditional gardening. In some areas, terms such as ''water conservation, water-conserving landscaping'', ''drought-tolerant landscaping'', and ''smart scaping'' are used instead. The use of plants whose natural requirements are appropriate to the local climate is emphasized, and care is taken to avoid losing water to evaporation and surface runoff, runoff. However, the specific plants used in xeriscaping vary based on climate as this strategy can be used in xeric, mesic, and hydric environments. Xeriscaping is different from natural landscaping, because the emphasis in x ... [...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] |
Shrubland
Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally or be the result of human activity. It may be the mature vegetation type in a particular region and remain stable over time, or a transitional community that occurs temporarily as the result of a disturbance, such as fire. A stable state may be maintained by regular natural disturbance such as fire or browsing. Shrubland may be unsuitable for human habitation because of the danger of fire. The term was coined in 1903. Shrubland species generally show a wide range of adaptations to fire, such as heavy seed production, lignotubers, and fire-induced germination. Botanical structural form In botany and ecology a shrub is defined as a much-branched woody plant less than 8 m high and usually with many stems. Tall shrubs are mostly 2–8 m high, small shrubs 1–2 m high and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neotropics
The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In biogeography, the Neotropic or Neotropical realm is one of the eight terrestrial realms. This realm includes South America, Central America, the Caribbean islands, and southern North America. In Mexico, the Yucatán Peninsula and southern lowlands, and most of the east and west coastlines, including the southern tip of the Baja California Peninsula are Neotropical. In the United States southern Florida and coastal Central Florida are considered Neotropical. The realm also includes temperate southern South America. In contrast, the Neotropical Floristic Kingdom excludes southernmost South America, which instead is placed in the Antarctic kingdom. The Neotropic is delimited by similarities in fauna or flora. Its fauna and flora are distinct ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Mexican Matorral
The Central Mexican matorral is an ecoregion of the deserts and xeric shrublands biome of central Mexico. It is the southernmost ecoregion of the Nearctic realm. Geography The Central Mexican matorral covers an area of on the southern portion of the Mexican Plateau. The Mexican Plateau is bounded on the east by the Sierra Madre Oriental, on the south by the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, and on the west by the Sierra Madre Occidental. The Central Mexican matorral covers much of the southern portion of the plateau, extending from the Valley of Mexico in the southeast to the Bolaños River in the northwest. The Central Mexican matorral is bounded by the Sierra Madre Oriental pine-oak forests to the east and northeast, the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt pine-oak forests to the southeast, and the Sierra Madre Occidental pine-oak forests on the northwest. An isolated enclave of the Central Mexican matorral occupies the Valley of Toluca. The higher mountain ranges of the plateau are hom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chihuahuan Desert
The Chihuahuan Desert ( es, Desierto de Chihuahua, ) is a desert ecoregion designation covering parts of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. It occupies much of far West Texas, the middle to lower Rio Grande Valley and the lower Pecos Valley in New Mexico, and a portion of southeastern Arizona, as well as the central and northern portions of the Mexican Plateau. It is bordered on the west by the Sonoran Desert, the Colorado Plateau, and the extensive Sierra Madre Occidental range, along with northwestern lowlands of the Sierra Madre Oriental range. Its largest, continual expanse is located in Mexico, covering a large portion of the state of Chihuahua, along with portions of Coahuila, north-eastern Durango, the extreme northern part of Zacatecas, and small western portions of Nuevo León. With an area of about , it is the largest desert in North America. The desert is fairly young, existing for only 8000 years. Geography There are several larger mou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nama Karoo
Nama Karoo is a xeric shrubland ecoregion located on the central plateau of South Africa and Namibia. It occupies most of the interior of the western half of South Africa and extends into the southern interior of Namibia. Climate The climate tends to be volatile and very harsh. Droughts are frequent with rain primarily falling in the summer. Rainfall can also be varied with it fluctuating between per year. Rainfall is known to be highly seasonal, peaking between December and March. It tends to decrease from the east to west and from north to south. The variability in the inter-annual rainfall also tends to increase with increasing aridity A region is arid when it severely lacks available water, to the extent of hindering or preventing the growth and development of plant and animal life. Regions with arid climates tend to lack vegetation and are called xeric or desertic. Most a .... Temperature variations as large as between day and night are common. Mean maximum tempe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atacama Desert
The Atacama Desert ( es, Desierto de Atacama) is a desert plateau in South America covering a 1,600 km (990 mi) strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes Mountains. The Atacama Desert is the driest nonpolar desert in the world, and the second driest overall, just behind some very specific spots within the McMurdo Dry Valleys as well as the only hot true desert to receive less precipitation than the polar deserts, and the largest fog desert in the world. Both regions have been used as experimentation sites on Earth for Mars expedition simulations. The Atacama Desert occupies , or if the barren lower slopes of the Andes are included. Most of the desert is composed of stony terrain, salt lakes (''salares''), sand, and felsic lava that flows towards the Andes. The desert owes its extreme aridity to a constant temperature inversion due to the cool north-flowing Humboldt ocean current and to the presence of the strong Pacific anticyclone. The most arid r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
