The Madagascar spiny forests (also known as the Madagascar spiny thickets) is an

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 l ...

in the southwest of

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

. The

vegetation type Vegetation classification is the process of classifying and mapping the vegetation over an area of the earth's surface. Vegetation classification is often performed by state based agencies as part of land use, resource management, resource and envi ...

is found on poor substrates with low, erratic winter rainfall. The ecoregion contains an outstanding proportion of endemic plant species and is listed as one of the 200 most important ecological regions in the world; one of the

Global 200 The Global 200 is the list of ecoregions identified by the World Wide Fund for Nature ( WWF), the global conservation organization, as priorities for conservation. According to WWF, an ecoregion is defined as a "relatively large unit of land or w ...

Flora

This is the area with the highest level of plant endemism in Madagascar, with 48% of the genera and 95% of the species endemic.Elmqvist T, Pyyko ̈nen M, Tengo ̈M, Rakotondrasoa F, Rabakonandrianina E, et al (2007) Patterns of Loss and Regeneration of Tropical DryForest in Madagascar: The Social Institutional Context. PLoS ONE 2(5): e402. doi:10.1371 Many constituent plants show extreme adaptations to drought. Spiny plants of the endemic subfamily

Didiereoideae Didiereaceae is a family of flowering plants found in continental Africa and Madagascar. It contains 20 species classified in three subfamilies and six genera. Species of the family are succulent plants, growing in sub-arid to arid habitats. Sev ...

form a conspicuous component, especially towards the east. They are woody but distantly related to the

cacti A cactus (, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a family comprising about 127 genera with some 1750 known species of the order Caryophyllales. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Greek ...

. The remaining component of the forests is dominated by members of the plant families

Burseraceae The Burseraceae are a moderate-sized family of 17-19 genera and about 540 species of flowering plants. The actual numbers differ according to the time period in which a given source is written describing this family. The Burseraceae are also kno ...

Euphorbiaceae Euphorbiaceae, the spurge family, is a large family of flowering plants. In English, they are also commonly called euphorbias, which is also the name of a genus in the family. Most spurges, such as ''Euphorbia paralias'', are herbs, but some, e ...

Anacardiaceae The Anacardiaceae, commonly known as the cashew family or sumac family, are a family of flowering plants, including about 83 genera with about 860 known species. Members of the Anacardiaceae bear fruits that are drupes and in some cases produce ...

and

Fabaceae The Fabaceae or Leguminosae,International Code of Nomenc ...

, all of which have representatives elsewhere.

Fauna

Notable inhabitants of the spiny thickets include the spider tortoise ('' Pyxis arachnoides'') and the radiated tortoise (''

Astrochelys radiata The radiated tortoise (''Astrochelys radiata'') is a tortoise species in the family Testudinidae. Although this species is native to and most abundant in southern Madagascar, it can also be found in the rest of this island, and has been intro ...

''), the gecko '' Ebenavia maintimainty'', several lemurs including Verreaux's sifaka,

Grandidier's mongoose Grandidier's mongoose (''Galidictis grandidieri''), also known as the giant-striped mongoose or Grandidier's vontsira, is a small carnivoran that lives only in a very small area of southwestern Madagascar, in areas of spiny forest vegetation. It ...

, and eight endemic birds.

Conservation

8.31% of the ecoregion is in protected areas. including

Tsimanampetsotsa National Park Tsimanampetsotsa National Park also spelt Tsimanampetsotse, and known as Tsimanampetsotsa Nature Reserve is a 432 km2 national Park, national park on the south-west coast of Madagascar in the region Atsimo-Andrefana. The park is south of Toli ...

Berenty Reserve Berenty Reserve is a small private reserve of gallery forest along the Mandrare River, set in the semi-arid spiny forest ecoregion of the far south of Madagascar. For more than three decades the late primatologist Alison Jolly (who started the res ...

Beza Mahafaly Reserve The Beza Mahafaly Special Reserve is a nature reserve in Madagascar northeast of Betioky Sud. The reserve also provides training and research opportunities. It consists of a fenced gallery forest, approximately , separated by from a gallery of ...

, and Cap Sainte Marie Special Reserve.

Andohahela National Park Andohahela National Park, in south-east Madagascar, is remarkable for the extremes of habitats that are represented within it. The park covers of the Anosy mountain range, the southernmost spur of the Malagasy Highlands and contains the last hum ...

offers limited protection through its 'parcel 3' section. Elsewhere the spiny forest habitat is under pressure from human exploitation. The main impacting activities are burning for conversion to grazing land, harvesting for charcoal and firewood, and logging for construction. The Arboretum d'Antsokay is a botanical garden near

Toliara Toliara (also known as ''Toliary'', ; formerly ''Tuléar'') is a city in Madagascar. It is the capital of the Atsimo-Andrefana region, located 936 km southwest of national capital Antananarivo. The current spelling of the name was adopted ...

dedicated to preserving the flora of the spiny forest.

Gallery

Ecoregions and forest types in Madagascar

As shown on the map on the right, Madagascar can be divided into four climatic

s with four forest types: the moist forest in the East (green), the dry forest in the West (orange), the spiny forest in the South (red), and the

mangrove forest Mangrove forests, also called mangrove swamps, mangrove thickets or mangals, are productive wetlands that occur in coastal intertidal zones. Mangrove forests grow mainly at tropical and subtropical latitudes because mangroves cannot withstand fr ...

on the West coast (blue). Ecoregions were defined following climatic and vegetation criteria.Ministère de l’Environnement (1996) "IEFN: Inventaire Ecologique Forestier National", Tech. Rep., Ministère De l’Environnement De Madagascar, Direction Des Eaux Et Forêts, DFS Deutsch Forest Service GmbH, Entreprise d’études de développement rural “Mamokatra”, FTM. The dark grey areas represent the remaining natural forest cover for the year 2014. Forest types are defined on the basis of their belonging to one of the four ecoregions. File:Alluaudia Procera Ifaty Madagascar.jpg, The Madagascar ocotillo, ''

Alluaudia procera ''Alluaudia procera'', or Madagascar ocotillo, is a deciduous succulent plant species of the family Didiereaceae. It is endemic to south Madagascar. Description This plant is a spiny succulent shrub, with thick water-storing stems and leaves th ...

'', named after the unrelated

ocotillo ''Fouquieria splendens'' (commonly known as ocotillo (), but also referred to as buggywhip, coachwhip, candlewood, slimwood, desert coral, Jacob's staff, Jacob cactus, and vine cactus) is a plant indigenous to the Sonoran Desert and Chihuahuan ...

File: Moringa Drouhardii01 Asit.jpg, The bottle tree, ''

Moringa drouhardii ''Moringa drouhardii'', the bottle tree, is an endemic species of southwest Madagascar. It occurs in the Madagascar spiny thickets ecoregion, especially at the limestone cliffs to the east of Lake Tsimanampetsotsa, on the Mahafaly Plateau. The sp ...

'', found mainly in the spiny forests File:Cheirogaleus-medius.jpg, A

fat-tailed dwarf lemur The fat-tailed dwarf lemur (''Cheirogaleus medius''), also known as the lesser dwarf lemur, western fat-tailed dwarf lemur, or spiny forest dwarf lemur, is endemic to Madagascar. Hibernation Recent research has shown that ''C. medius'' hibernat ...

of the spiny forests and succulent woodlands File:Propithecus_verreauxi_i.jpg, Verreaux's sifaka, a lemur species occurring, in part, in the spiny forests File: Lemur catta - tail length 01.jpg, A

ring-tailed lemur The ring-tailed lemur (''Lemur catta'') is a large strepsirrhine primate and the most recognized lemur due to its long, black and white ringed tail. It belongs to Lemuridae, one of five lemur families, and is the only member of the ''Lemur'' ge ...

in Berenty Reserve, set in the spiny forests ecoregion File:Mungo1.jpg,

, a range-restricted carnivore of the spiny forests File: Subdesert Mesite.jpg, The

subdesert mesite The subdesert mesite (''Monias benschi'') is a ground-dwelling bird endemic to Madagascar. It is one of three species in the mesite family Mesitornithidae, and is restricted in distribution to a small low-land region in southwest Madagascar. De ...

, endemic to the spiny forests

References

External links and bibliography

* For extent, fragmentation and intact sections, see: ''A refined classification of the primary vegetation of Madagascar based on the underlying geology'', Du Puy and Moat, 1996. * For dominant plant families, see: ''Structure and floristic composition of the vegetation in the Réserve Naturelle Intégrale d’Andohahela, Madagascar'', Rakotomalaza and Messmer, 1999. *{{WWF ecoregion, name=Madagascar spiny thickets, id=at1311
Madagascar spiny thickets (Encyclopedia of the Earth)
Deserts and xeric shrublands Ecoregions of Madagascar Atsimo-Andrefana Anosy Androy

Flora

Fauna

Conservation

Gallery

See also

References

External links and bibliography