1.
Biogeographic realm
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A biogeographic realm or ecozone is the broadest biogeographic division of the Earths land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial organisms. They are subdivided in ecoregions, which are classified in biomes or habitat types, as such, biogeographic realms designations are used to indicate general groupings of organisms based on their shared biogeography. Biogeographic realms correspond to the kingdoms of botany or zoogeographic regions of zoology. Biogeographic realms are characterized by the history of the organisms they contain. Biomes are characterized by similar climax vegetation, each realm may include a number of different biomes. The biogeographic realms of Udvardy were defined based on taxonomic composition, the rank corresponds more or less to the floristic kingdoms and zoogeographic regions. The usage of the ecozone is more variable. It was used originally in stratigraphy, in Canadian literature, the term was used by Wiken in macro level land classification, with geographic criteria. Later, Schültz would use it with ecological and physiognomical criteria, in the Global 200/WWF scheme, originally the term biogeographic realm in Udvardy sense was used. However, in a scheme of BBC, it was replaced by the term ecozone, in the WWF system, The Australasia realm includes Australia, Tasmania, the islands of Wallacea, New Guinea, the East Melanesian islands, New Caledonia, and New Zealand. The Palearctic and Nearctic are sometimes grouped into the Holarctic realm, the drainage basins of the principal oceans and seas of the world are marked by continental divides. The grey areas are endorheic basins that do not drain to the ocean
2.
Zoogeography
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Zoogeography is the branch of the science of biogeography that is concerned with the geographic distribution of animal species. Schmarda proposed 21 regions, while Woodward proposed 27 terrestrial and 18 marine, Murray proposed 4, Blyth proposed 7, Allen 8 regions, Heilprin proposed 6, Newton proposed 6, Gadow proposed 4. Philip Sclater and Alfred Wallace identified the main regions of the world used today, Palaearctic, Aethiopian, Indian, Australasian, Nearctic. In a similar way to geobotanic divisions, our planet is divided in regions, sometimes including the categories Empire. The current trend is to classify the floristic kingdoms of botany or zoogeographic regions of zoology as biogeographic realms, following, some examples of regionalizations, Creatio Palaeogeana I. Regio Australiana Creatio Neogeana V. Regio Nearctica VI, ethiopian Region, Africa, with part of southern Arabia 2. Oriental Region, tropical Asia, with associated continental islands 3, palearctic Region, Eurasia above the tropics, with the northern corner of Africa 4. Nearctic Region, North America, excepting the tropical part of Mexico Realm Neogea 5, Neotropical Region, South and Central America with the tropical part of Mexico Realm Notogea 6. Australian Region, Australia, with New Guinea, etc, Nearctic Region Main regions of the Old World tropics 3. Australian Region Animal geographies Fauna Phytogeography Zoology Léon Croizat Bodenheimer, F. S, an introduction to the problems of animal ecology and zoogeography
3.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
4.
Asia
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Asia covers an area of 44,579,000 square kilometres, about 30% of Earths total land area and 8. 7% of the Earths total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Asia is notable for not only its large size and population. In general terms, Asia is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean, the western boundary with Europe is a historical and cultural construct, as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. The most commonly accepted boundaries place Asia to the east of the Suez Canal, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains, China and India alternated in being the largest economies in the world from 1 to 1800 A. D. The accidental discovery of America by Columbus in search for India demonstrates this deep fascination, the Silk Road became the main East-West trading route in the Asian hitherland while the Straits of Malacca stood as a major sea route. Asia has exhibited economic dynamism as well as robust population growth during the 20th century, given its size and diversity, the concept of Asia—a name dating back to classical antiquity—may actually have more to do with human geography than physical geography. Asia varies greatly across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, cultures, environments, economics, historical ties, the boundary between Asia and Africa is the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, and the Suez Canal. This makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai peninsula in Asia, the border between Asia and Europe was historically defined by European academics. In Sweden, five years after Peters death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Urals as the border of Asia, the Russians were enthusiastic about the concept, which allowed them to keep their European identity in geography. Tatishchev announced that he had proposed the idea to von Strahlenberg, the latter had suggested the Emba River as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the Ural River prevailed in the mid-19th century, the border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects. The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is usually placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, the border between Asia and the loosely defined region of Oceania is usually placed somewhere in the Malay Archipelago. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several different geographic meanings since their inception. The chief factor in determining which islands of the Malay Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the possessions of the various empires there. Lewis and Wigen assert, The narrowing of Southeast Asia to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process, Asia is larger and more culturally diverse than Europe. It does not exactly correspond to the borders of its various types of constituents. From the time of Herodotus a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system on the grounds there is no or is no substantial physical separation between them
5.
Himalayas
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The Himalayas, or Himalaya, form a mountain range in Asia separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The Himalayan range has the Earths highest peaks, including the highest, the Himalayas include over a hundred mountains exceeding 7,200 metres in elevation. By contrast, the highest peak outside Asia – Aconcagua, in the Andes – is 6,961 metres tall. The Himalayas are spread across five countries, Bhutan, India, Nepal, China, the Himalayan range is bordered on the northwest by the Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges, on the north by the Tibetan Plateau, and on the south by the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Some of the major rivers, the Indus, the Ganges, and the Tsangpo-Brahmaputra, rise in the Himalayas. The Himalayas have profoundly shaped the cultures of South Asia, many Himalayan peaks are sacred in Hinduism and Buddhism. Lifted by the subduction of the Indian tectonic plate under the Eurasian Plate and its western anchor, Nanga Parbat, lies just south of the northernmost bend of Indus river. Its eastern anchor, Namcha Barwa, is just west of the bend of the Tsangpo river. The range varies in width from 400 kilometres in the west to 150 kilometres in the east, the name of the range derives from the Sanskrit Himā-laya, from himá and ā-laya. They are now known as the Himalaya Mountains, usually shortened to the Himalayas, formerly, they were described in the singular as the Himalaya. This was also previously transcribed Himmaleh, as in Emily Dickinsons poetry and Henry David Thoreaus essays. The mountains are known as the Himālaya in Nepali and Hindi, the Himalaya or The Land of Snow in Tibetan, the Hamaleh Mountain Range in Urdu, the flora and fauna of the Himalayas vary with climate, rainfall, altitude, and soils. The climate ranges from tropical at the base of the mountains to permanent ice, the amount of yearly rainfall increases from west to east along the southern front of the range. This diversity of altitude, rainfall and soil conditions combined with the high snow line supports a variety of distinct plant. The extremes of high altitude combined with extreme cold favor extremophile organisms, the unique floral and faunal wealth of the Himalayas is undergoing structural and compositional changes due to climate change. The increase in temperature is shifting various species to higher elevations, the oak forest is being invaded by pine forests in the Garhwal Himalayan region. There are reports of early flowering and fruiting in some species, especially rhododendron, apple. The highest known tree species in the Himalayas is Juniperus tibetica located at 4,900 metres in Southeastern Tibet, the Himalayan range is one of the youngest mountain ranges on the planet and consists mostly of uplifted sedimentary and metamorphic rock
6.
North Africa
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North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of Africa. The United Nationss definition of Northern Africa is, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, the countries of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya are often collectively referred to as the Maghreb, which is the Arabic word for sunset. Egypt lies to the northeast and encompasses part of West Asia, while Sudan is situated on the edge of the Sahel, Egypt is a transcontinental country because of the Sinai Peninsula, which geographically lies in Western Asia. North Africa also includes a number of Spanish possessions, the Canary Islands and Madeira in the North Atlantic Ocean northwest of the African mainland are included in considerations of the region. From 3500 BC, following the abrupt desertification of the Sahara due to changes in the Earths orbit. The Islamic influence in the area is significant, and North Africa is a major part of the Muslim world. Some researchers have postulated that North Africa rather than East Africa served as the point for the modern humans who first trekked out of the continent in the Out of Africa migration. The Atlas Mountains extend across much of Morocco, northern Algeria and Tunisia, are part of the mountain system that also runs through much of Southern Europe. They recede to the south and east, becoming a steppe landscape before meeting the Sahara desert, the sediments of the Sahara overlie an ancient plateau of crystalline rock, some of which is more than four billion years old. Sheltered valleys in the Atlas Mountains, the Nile Valley and Delta, a wide variety of valuable crops including cereals, rice and cotton, and woods such as cedar and cork, are grown. Typical Mediterranean crops, such as olives, figs, dates and citrus fruits, the Nile Valley is particularly fertile, and most of the population in Egypt and Sudan live close to the river. Elsewhere, irrigation is essential to improve yields on the desert margins. The inhabitants of Saharan Africa are generally divided in a manner corresponding to the principal geographic regions of North Africa, the Maghreb, the Nile valley. The edge of the Sahel, to the south of Egypt has mainly been inhabited by Nubians, Ancient Egyptians record extensive contact in their Western desert with people that appear to have been Berber or proto-Berber, as well as Nubians from the south. They have contributed to the Arabized Berber populations, the official language or one of the official languages in all of the countries in North Africa is Arabic. The people of the Maghreb and the Sahara regions speak Berber languages and several varieties of Arabic, the Arabic and Berber languages are distantly related, both being members of the Afroasiatic language family. The Tuareg Berber languages are more conservative than those of the coastal cities. Over the years, Berbers have been influenced by contact with cultures, Greeks, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Romans, Vandals, Arabs, Europeans
7.
Arabian Peninsula
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The Arabian Peninsula, simplified Arabia is a peninsula of Western Asia situated northeast of Africa on the Arabian plate. From a geological perspective, it is considered a subcontinent of Asia and it is the largest peninsula in the world, at 3,237,500 km2. The Arabian Peninsula consists of the countries Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the Arabian Peninsula plays a critical geopolitical role in the Middle East and the Arab world due to its vast reserves of oil and natural gas. Before the modern era, it was divided into four regions, Hejaz, Najd, Southern Arabia. Hejaz and Najd make up most of Saudi Arabia, Southern Arabia consists of Yemen and some parts of Saudi Arabia and Oman. Eastern Arabia consists of the coastal strip of the Persian Gulf. The most prominent feature of the peninsula is desert, but in the southwest there are mountain ranges, harrat ash Shaam is a large volcanic field that extends from the northwestern Arabian Peninsula into Jordan and southern Syria. The peninsulas constituent countries are Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the island nation of Bahrain lies off the east coast of the peninsula. Six countries form the Gulf Cooperation Council, however, this is a disputed term. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia covers the part of the peninsula. The majority of the population of the live in Saudi Arabia. The peninsula contains the worlds largest reserves of oil, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are economically the wealthiest in the region. Qatar, a peninsula in the Persian Gulf on the larger peninsula, is home of the Arabic-language television station Al Jazeera. Kuwait, on the border with Iraq, is an important country strategically, though historically lightly populated, political Arabia is noted for a high population growth rate - as the result of both very strong inflows of migrant labor as well as sustained high birth rates. The population tends to be young and heavily skewed gender ratio dominated by males. In many states, the number of South Asians exceeds that of the local citizenry, the four smallest states, which have their entire coastlines on the Persian Gulf, exhibit the worlds most extreme population growth, roughly tripling every 20 years. In 2014, the population of the Arabian Peninsula was 77,983,936. Listed here are the human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups in Arabia Haplogroup J is the most abundant component in the Arabian peninsula and its two main subclades, show opposite latitudinal gradients in the Middle East
8.
Ecoregion
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An ecoregion is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than an ecozone. All three of these are less or greater than an ecosystem. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, the biodiversity of flora, fauna and ecosystems that characterise an ecoregion tends to be distinct from that of other ecoregions. 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, secondly, ecoregion boundaries rarely form abrupt edges, rather, ecotones and mosaic habitats bound them. Thirdly, most ecoregions contain habitats that differ from their assigned biome, biogeographic provinces may originate due to various barriers. Some physical, some climatic and some ocean chemical related, the history of the term is somewhat vague as it was used in many contexts, forest classifications, biome classifications, biogeographic classifications, etc. The concept of ecoregion of Bailey gives more importance to ecological criteria, while the WWF concept gives more importance to biogeography, there is significant, but not absolute, spatial correlation among these characteristics, making the delineation of ecoregions an imperfect science. Such transition zones are called ecotones, Ecoregions can be categorized using an algorithmic approach or a holistic, “weight-of-evidence” approach where the importance of various factors may vary. An example of the approach is Robert Bailey’s work for the U. S. The intended purpose of ecoregion delineation may affect the method used, according to WWF, the boundaries of an ecoregion approximate the original extent of the natural communities prior to any major recent disruptions or changes. WWF has identified 867 terrestrial ecoregions, and approximately 450 freshwater ecoregions across the Earth, the use of the term ecoregion is an outgrowth of a surge of interest in ecosystems and their functioning. In particular, there is awareness of issues relating to spatial scale in the study and it is widely recognized that interlinked ecosystems combine to form a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. The Global 200 is the list of ecoregions identified by WWF as priorities for conservation, Terrestrial ecoregions are land ecoregions, as distinct from freshwater and marine ecoregions. In this context, terrestrial is used to mean of land, WWF ecologists currently divide the land surface of the Earth into 8 major ecozones containing 867 smaller terrestrial ecoregions. The WWF effort is a synthesis of previous efforts to define. Many consider this classification to be decisive, and some propose these as stable borders for bioregional democracy initiatives. The eight terrestrial ecozones follow the major floral and faunal boundaries, identified by botanists and zoologists, ecozone boundaries generally follow continental boundaries, or major barriers to plant and animal distribution, like the Himalayas and the Sahara
9.
Mediterranean Basin
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As a rule of thumb, the Mediterranean Basin is the Old World region where olive trees grow. The Mediterranean basin covers portions of three continents Africa, Asia, and Europe and it has a varied and contrasting topography. Contrary to the sandy beach images portrayed in most tourist brochures. Mountains can be seen from almost anywhere, the Mediterranean Basin extends into Western Asia, covering the western and southern portions of the peninsula of Turkey, excluding the temperate-climate mountains of central Turkey. It includes the Mediterranean climate Levant at the end of the Mediterranean, bounded on the east and south by the Syrian. The northern portion of the Maghreb region of northwestern Africa has a Mediterranean climate, separated from the Sahara Desert, Europe lies to the north, and three large Southern European peninsulas, the Iberian Peninsula, Italian Peninsula, and the Balkan Peninsula, extend into the Mediterranean-climate zone. The Mediterranean Basin was shaped by the ancient collision of the northward-moving African-Arabian continent with the stable Eurasian continent, as Africa-Arabia moved north, it closed the former Tethys Sea, which formerly separated Eurasia from the ancient super continent of Gondwana, of which Africa was part. At about the time,170 mya in the Jurassic period. The collision pushed up a vast system of mountains, extending from the Pyrenees in Spain to the Zagros Mountains in Iran and this episode of mountain building, known as the Alpine orogeny, occurred mostly during the Oligocene and Miocene epochs. The Neotethys became larger during these collisions and associated folding and subduction, about 6 mya during the late Miocene, the Mediterranean was closed at its western end by drifting Africa, which caused the entire sea to evaporate. There followed several episodes of sea drawdown and re-flooding known as the Messinian Salinity Crisis, recent studies, however, show that repeated desiccation and re-flooding is unlikely from a geodynamic point of view. The end of the Miocene also marked a change in the Mediterranean Basins climate, fossil evidence shows that the Mediterranean Basin had a relatively humid subtropical climate with summer rainfall during the Miocene, which supported laurel forests. The shift to a Mediterranean climate occurred within the last 3. 2–2.8 million years, during the Pliocene epoch, much of these forests and shrublands have been altered beyond recognition by thousands of years of human habitation. There are now very few relatively intact natural areas in what was once a wooded region. The Mediterranean Region was first proposed by German botanist August Grisebach in the late 19th century, drosophyllaceae, recently segregated from Droseraceae, is the only plant family endemic to the region. Among the endemic plant genera are, The genera Aubrieta, Sesamoides, Cynara, Dracunculus, moreover, many plant taxa are shared with one of the four neighboring floristic regions only. The Mediterranean Basin is the largest of the worlds five Mediterranean forests, woodlands and it is home to a number of plant communities, which vary with rainfall, elevation, latitude, and soils. Scrublands occur in the driest areas, especially areas near the seacoast where wind, low, soft-leaved scrublands around the Mediterranean are known as garrigar in Catalan, garrigue in French, phrygana in Greek, tomillares in Spanish, and batha in Hebrew
10.
Sahara
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The Sahara is the largest hot desert and the third largest desert in the world after Antarctica and the Arctic. Its area of 9,200,000 square kilometres is comparable to the area of the United States. The desert comprises much of North Africa, excluding the fertile region on the Mediterranean Sea coast, the Atlas Mountains of the Maghreb, and the Nile Valley in Egypt and Sudan. It stretches from the Red Sea in the east and the Mediterranean in the north to the Atlantic Ocean in the west, where the landscape gradually changes from desert to coastal plains. To the south, it is bounded by the Sahel, a belt of tropical savanna around the Niger River valley. The Sahara can be divided into several regions including, the western Sahara, the central Ahaggar Mountains, the Tibesti Mountains, the Aïr Mountains, the Ténéré desert, the name Sahara is derived from ṣaḥārā, the plural of the Arabic word for desert. The Sahara covers large parts of Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan and it covers 9 million square kilometres, amounting to 31% of Africa. If all areas with an annual precipitation of less than 250 mm were included. It is one of three physiographic provinces of the African massive physiographic division. The Sahara is mainly rocky hamada, Ergs form only a minor part, wind or rare rainfall shape the desert features, sand dunes, dune fields, sand seas, stone plateaus, gravel plains, dry valleys, dry lakes, and salt flats. Unusual landforms include the Richat Structure in Mauritania, several deeply dissected mountains, many volcanic, rise from the desert, including the Aïr Mountains, Ahaggar Mountains, Saharan Atlas, Tibesti Mountains, Adrar des Iforas, and the Red Sea hills. The highest peak in the Sahara is Emi Koussi, a volcano in the Tibesti range of northern Chad. The central Sahara is hyperarid, with sparse vegetation, the northern and southern reaches of the desert, along with the highlands, have areas of sparse grassland and desert shrub, with trees and taller shrubs in wadis, where moisture collects. In the central, hyperarid region, there are subdivisions of the great desert, Tanezrouft, the Ténéré, the Libyan Desert, the Eastern Desert. These extremely arid areas often receive no rain for years, the northern limit also corresponds to the 100 mm isohyet of annual precipitation. To the south, the Sahara is bounded by the Sahel, the southern limit of the Sahara is indicated botanically by the southern limit of Cornulaca monacantha, or northern limit of Cenchrus biflorus, a grass typical of the Sahel. According to climatic criteria, the limit of the Sahara corresponds to the 150 mm isohyet of annual precipitation. The Sahara is the worlds largest low-latitude hot desert and this steady descending airflow causes a warming and a drying effect in the upper troposphere
11.
Arabian Desert
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The Arabian Desert is located in Western Asia. It is a vast desert wilderness stretching from Yemen to the Persian Gulf and Oman to Jordan and it occupies most of the Arabian Peninsula, with an area of 2,330,000 square kilometers. At its center is the Rubal-Khali, one of the largest continuous bodies of sand in the world. Gazelles, oryx, sand cats, and spiny-tailed lizards are just some of the species that survive in this extreme environment. The climate is dry, and temperatures oscillate between very high heat and seasonal night time freezes. It is part of the Deserts and xeric shrublands biome and the Palearctic ecozone and this ecoregion holds little biodiversity, although a few endemic plants grow here. Many species, such as the hyena, jackal and honey badger have become extinct in this area due to hunting, human encroachment. Other species have been successfully re-introduced, such as the sand gazelle, overgrazing by livestock, off-road driving, and human destruction of habitat are the main threats to this desert ecoregion. Detailed geological features, A corridor of sandy terrain known as the Ad-Dahna desert connects the large An-Nafud desert in the north of Saudi Arabia to the Rub Al-Khali in the south-east, the Tuwaiq escarpment is a region of 800 km arc of limestone cliffs, plateaux, and canyons. At an altitude of 1,000 metres, the rock landscapes yield the place to the Rub al Khali, vast wide of sand of the Arabian desert, the sand overlies gravel or gypsum plains and the dunes reach maximum heights of up to 250 m. The sands are predominantly silicates, composed of 80 to 90% of quartz and the feldspar, whose iron oxide-coated grains color the sands in orange, purple. Some of natural resources available in the Arabian Desert are oil, natural gas, phosphates, the Rubal-Khali has very limited floristic diversity. There are only 37 species,20 recorded in the body of the sands and 17 around the outer margins. Among these 37 species, only one or two are endemic, vegetation is very diffuse but fairly evenly distributed, with some interruptions of near sterile dunes. Some typical plants are, Calligonum crinitum on dune slopes Cornulaca arabica Cyperus conglomeratus, other widespread species are, Dipterygium glaucum Limeum arabicum Zygophyllum mandavillei. Very little trees may be found except at the outer margin, in fact, the Arabian Desert is an extension of the Sahara Desert over the Arabian peninsula. The climate is hot and dry with plenty of sunshine throughout the year. The rainfall amount is generally around 100 mm, and the driest areas can receive between 30 and 40 mm of annual rain, such dryness remains very rare throughout the desert, however
12.
Western Asia
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Western Asia, West Asia, Southwestern Asia or Southwest Asia is the westernmost subregion of Asia. The concept is in limited use, as it overlaps with the Middle East. The term is used for the purposes of grouping countries in statistics. The total population of Western Asia is an estimated 300 million as of 2015, in an unrelated context, the term is also used in ancient history and archaeology to divide the Fertile Crescent into the Asiatic or Western Asian cultures as opposed to ancient Egypt. As a geographic concept, Western Asia almost always includes the Levant, Mesopotamia, the term is used pragmatically and has no correct or generally agreed-upon definition. In contrast to this definition, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation in its 2015 yearbook also includes Armenia and Azerbaijan, unlike the UNIDO, the United Nations Statistics Division excludes Iran from Western Asia and include Turkey, Georgia, and Cyprus in the region. These four countries are listed in the European category of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, the Olympic Council of Asias multi-sport event West Asian Games are contested by athletes representing these thirteen countries. Among the regions sports organisations are the West Asia Basketball Association, West Asian Billiards and Snooker Federation, West Asian Football Federation, Western Asia was in use as a geographical term in the early 19th century, even before Near East became current as a geopolitical concept. Use of the term in the context of contemporary geopolitics or world economy appears to date from the 1960s, Western Asia is located directly south of Eastern Europe. The region is surrounded by seven major seas, the Aegean Sea, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea. The Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut deserts in eastern Iran naturally delimit the region somewhat from Asia itself, three major tectonic plates converge on Western Asia, including the African, Eurasian, and Arabian plates. The boundaries between the plates make up the Azores-Gibraltar Ridge, extending across North Africa, the Red Sea. The Arabian Plate is moving northward into the Anatolian plate at the East Anatolian Fault, several major aquifers provide water to large portions of Western Asia. In Saudi Arabia, two large aquifers of Palaeozoic and Triassic origins are located beneath the Jabal Tuwayq mountains and areas west to the Red Sea. Cretaceous and Eocene-origin aquifers are located beneath large portions of central and eastern Saudi Arabia, including Wasia, flood or furrow irrigation, as well as sprinkler methods, are extensively used for irrigation, covering nearly 90,000 km² across Western Asia for agriculture. Western Asia is primarily arid and semi-arid, and can be subject to drought, the region consists of grasslands, rangelands, deserts, and mountains. Water shortages are a problem in parts of West Asia, with rapidly growing populations increasing demands for water. Major rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates, provide sources for water to support agriculture
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Central Asia
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Central Asia stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north. It is also referred to as the -stans as the five countries generally considered to be within the region all have names ending with the Persian suffix -stan. Central Asias five former Soviet republics are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Central Asia has historically been closely tied to its nomadic peoples and the Silk Road. It has acted as a crossroads for the movement of people, goods, the Silk Road connected Muslim lands with the people of Europe, India, and China. This crossroads position has intensified the conflict between tribalism and traditionalism and modernization, in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, Central Asia was predominantly Iranian, peopled by Eastern Iranian-speaking Bactrians, Sogdians and Chorasmians and the semi-nomadic Scythians and Parthians. Central Asia is sometimes referred to as Turkestan, the idea of Central Asia as a distinct region of the world was introduced in 1843 by the geographer Alexander von Humboldt. The borders of Central Asia are subject to multiple definitions, historically built political geography and geoculture are two significant parameters widely used in the scholarly literature about the definitions of the Central Asia. The most limited definition was the one of the Soviet Union. This definition was also used outside the USSR during this period. However, the Russian culture has two terms, Средняя Азия and Центральная Азия. Since then, this has become the most common definition of Central Asia, the UNESCO general history of Central Asia, written just before the collapse of the USSR, defines the region based on climate and uses far larger borders. An alternative method is to define the region based on ethnicity and these areas include Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Turkic regions of southern Siberia, the five republics, and Afghan Turkestan. Afghanistan as a whole, the northern and western areas of Pakistan, the Tibetans and Ladakhi are also included. Insofar, most of the peoples are considered the indigenous peoples of the vast region. Central Asia is a large region of varied geography, including high passes and mountains, vast deserts. The vast steppe areas of Central Asia are considered together with the steppes of Eastern Europe as a geographical zone known as the Eurasian Steppe. Much of the land of Central Asia is too dry or too rugged for farming, the Gobi desert extends from the foot of the Pamirs, 77° E, to the Great Khingan Mountains, 116°–118° E. Central Asia has the following geographic extremes, The worlds northernmost desert, at Buurug Deliin Els, Mongolia, the Northern Hemispheres southernmost permafrost, at Erdenetsogt sum, Mongolia, 46°17′ N
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East Asia
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East Asia is the eastern subregion of the Asian continent, which can be defined in either geographical or ethno-cultural terms. Geographically and geopolitically, it includes China, Taiwan, Mongolia, Korea and Japan, it covers about 12,000,000 km2, or about 28% of the Asian continent, the East Asian people comprise more than 1.5 billion people. About 38% of the population of Asia and 22%, or over one fifth, the overall population density of the region is 133 inhabitants per square kilometre, about three times the world average of 45/km2. Historically, societies in East Asia have been part of the Chinese cultural sphere, major religions include Buddhism, Confucianism or Neo-Confucianism, Taoism, Chinese folk religion in China and Taiwan, Shinto in Japan, Korean shamanism in Korea. Shamanism is also prevalent among Mongolians and other populations of northern East Asia. The Chinese calendar is the root from which many other East Asian calendars are derived, Chinese Dynasties dominated the region in matters of culture, trade, and exploration as well as militarily for a very long time. There are records of tributes sent overseas from the kingdoms of Korea. There were also considerable levels of cultural and religious exchange between the Chinese and other regional Dynasties and Kingdoms, as connections began to strengthen with the Western world, Chinas power began to diminish. Around the same time, Japan solidified itself as a nation state, throughout World War II, Korea, Taiwan, much of eastern China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam all fell under Japanese control. Culturally, China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam are commonly seen as being encompassed by cultural East Asia, there are mixed debates around the world whether these countries or regions should be considered in East Asia or not. Vietnam Siberia in Russia Sovereignty issues exist over some territories in the South China Sea, however, in this context, the term Far East is often more appropriate which covers ASEAN countries and the countries in East Asia. However, being a Eurocentric term, Far East describes the geographical position in relation to Europe rather than its location within Asia. Alternatively, the term Asia Pacific Region is often used in describing East Asia and this usage, which is seen in economic and diplomatic discussions, is at odds with the historical meanings of both East Asia and Northeast Asia. The Council on Foreign Relations defines Northeast Asia as Japan and Korea, the military and economic superpower of China became the largest economy in the world in 2014, surpassing the United States of America. Currently in East Asia, trading systems are open, and zero or low duties on imports of consumer and capital goods etc. have considerably helped stimulate cost-efficiency. Free and flexible labor and other markets are important factors making for high levels of business-economic performance. East Asian populations have demonstrated highly positive work ethics, there are relatively large and fast-growing markets for consumer goods and services of all kinds. The culture of East Asia has been influenced by the civilisation of China, East Asia, as well as Vietnam, share a Confucian ethical philosophy, Buddhism, political and legal structures, and historically a common writing system
15.
Linnean Society of London
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The Linnean Society of London is a society dedicated to the study of, and the dissemination of information concerning, natural history and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature collections and publishes academic journals and books on plant, the society also awards a number of prestigious medals and prizes for achievement. A product of the 18th century enlightenment, the society is important as the venue for the first public presentation of the Theory of Evolution. The patron of the society is Queen Elizabeth II, the Linnean Society was founded in 1788 by botanist Sir James Edward Smith. The society derives its name from the Swedish naturalist Carolus Linnaeus, the father of taxonomy and he was known as Carl von Linné after his ennoblement, hence the spelling Linnean, rather than Linnaean. The society had a number of minor name variations before it gained its Royal Charter on 26 March 1802, in 1802, as a newly incorporated society, it comprised 228 fellows. It is the oldest extant natural history society in the world, throughout its history the society has been a non-political and non-sectarian institution, existing solely for the furtherance of natural history. The society has numbered many prominent scientists amongst its fellows, one such was the botanist Robert Brown, who was president, he named the cell nucleus and discovered Brownian motion. In 1854 Charles Darwin was elected a fellow, he is undoubtedly the most illustrious scientist ever to appear on the rolls of the society. Another famous fellow was biologist Thomas Huxley, who gained the nickname Darwins bulldog for his defence of evolution. At this meeting a joint presentation of papers by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace was made, sponsored by Joseph Hooker, in 1904 the society experienced the novelty of electing women fellows, this followed a number of years of campaigning by the botanist Marian Farquharson. Whilst the societys council was reluctant to admit women, the fellows were much less so, among the first to benefit from this were, Lilian J. Veley, a microbiologist and Annie Lorrain Smith, a lichenologist and mycologist, both formally admitted on 19 January 1905. Also amongst the first women to be elected in 1904 was the paleobotanist, the societys connection with evolution remained strong into the 20th century. Sir Edward Poulton, who was president 1912-1916, was a defender of natural selection and was the first biologist to recognise the importance of frequency-dependent selection. The first female president of the society was Irene Manton, who pioneered the use of electron microscopy. Her work revealed the structure of the flagellum and cilia, which are central to systems of cellular motility. Recent years have seen an increased interest within the society in issues of biodiversity conservation and this was highlighted by the inception in 2015 of an annual award, the John Spedan Lewis Medal, specifically honouring persons making significant and innovative contributions to conservation. Fellowship requires nomination by at least one fellow, and election by a minimum of two thirds of those electors voting, fellows may employ the post-nominal letters FLS
16.
Philip Sclater
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Philip Lutley Sclater FRS FRGS FZS FLS was an English lawyer and zoologist. In zoology, he was an expert ornithologist, and identified the main regions of the world. He was Secretary of the Zoological Society of London for 42 years, Sclater was born at Tangier Park, in Wootton St Lawrence, Hampshire, where his father William Lutley Sclater had a country house. George Sclater-Booth, 1st Baron Basing was Philips elder brother, Philip grew up at Hoddington House where he took an early interest in birds. He was educated in school at Twyford and at thirteen went to Winchester College and later Corpus Christi College, in 1851 he began to study law and was admitted a Fellow of Corpus Christi College. In 1856 he travelled to America and visited Lake Superior and the upper St. Croix River, Sclater wrote about this in Illustrated travels. In Philadelphia he met Spencer Baird, John Cassin and Joseph Leidy at the Academy of Natural Sciences, after returning to England, he practised law for several years and attended meetings of the Zoological Society of London. These zoogeographic regions are still in use and he also developed the theory of Lemuria during 1864 to explain zoological coincidences relating Madagascar to India. In 1874 he became secretary to his brother George Sclater-Booth. He was offered a permanent position in service but he declined. In 1875, he became President of the Biological Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Sclater was the founder and editor of The Ibis, the journal of the British Ornithologists Union. He was Secretary of the Zoological Society of London from 1860 to 1902 and he was briefly succeeded by his son, before the Council of the Society made a long-term appointment. In 1901 he described the okapi to western scientists although he never saw one alive and his office at 11 Hanover Square became a meeting place for all naturalists in London. Travellers and residents shared notes with him and he corresponded with thousands and his collection of birds grew to nine thousand and these he transferred to the British Museum in 1886. At around the time the museum was augmented by the collections of Gould, Salvin and Godman, Hume. Among Sclaters more important books were Exotic Ornithology and Nomenclator Avium, in June 1901 he received an honorary doctorate of Science from the University of Oxford. On 16 October 1862 he married Jane Anne Eliza Hunter Blair and their eldest son, William Lutley Sclater, was also an ornithologist. Their third son, Captain Guy Lutley Sclater, died in 1914 in the explosion that sank HMS Bulwark
17.
Palearctic realm
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The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms constituting the Earths surface. It consists of Europe, Asia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, North Africa, the Palearctic realm comprises the smaller terrestrial ecoregions of the Euro-Siberian region, the Mediterranean Basin, the Sahara and Arabian Deserts, and Western, Central and East Asia. The Palaearctic realm also has rivers and lakes, forming several freshwater ecoregions. Some of the rivers were the source of water for the earliest recorded civilizations that used irrigation methods, the Palearctic realm includes mostly boreal/subarctic-climate and temperate-climate ecoregions, which run across Eurasia from western Europe to the Bering Sea. South of the taiga are a belt of temperate broadleaf and mixed forests and this vast Euro-Siberian region is characterized by many shared plant and animal species, and has many affinities with the temperate and boreal regions of the Nearctic ecoregion of North America. Many zoologists consider the Palearctic and Nearctic to be a single Holarctic realm, the Palearctic and Nearctic also share many plant species, which botanists call the Arcto-Tertiary Geoflora. The Mediterranean basins mosaic of Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub are home to 13,000 endemic species. Formerly the region was covered with forests and woodlands, but heavy human use has reduced much of the region to the sclerophyll shrublands known as chaparral, matorral, maquis. Conservation International has designated the Mediterranean basin as one of the biodiversity hotspots. A great belt of deserts, including the Atlantic coastal desert, Sahara desert, Central Asia and the Iranian plateau are home to dry steppe grasslands and desert basins, with montane forests, woodlands, and grasslands in the regions high mountains and plateaux. In southern Asia the boundary of the Palearctic is largely altitudinal, the middle altitude foothills of the Himalaya between about 2000–2500 m form the boundary between the Palearctic and Indomalaya ecoregions. East Asia was not much affected by glaciation in the ice ages, the mountains of southwest China are also designated as a biodiversity hotspot. In Southeastern Asia, high mountain ranges form tongues of Palearctic flora and fauna in northern Indochina, isolated small outposts occur as far south as central Myanmar, northernmost Vietnam and the high mountains of Taiwan. One bird family, the accentors is endemic to the Palearctic region, the Holarctic has four other endemic bird families, the divers or loons, grouse, auks, and waxwings. There are no endemic mammal orders in the region, but several families are endemic, Calomyscidae, Prolagidae, contributions to the zooarchaeology of Iceland, some preliminary notes. Iowa City, University of Iowa Press, pages 203–227,1989, buckland, P. C. et al. Holt in Eyjafjasveit, Iceland, a paleoecological study of the impact of Landnám. in Acta Archaeologica 61, pp. 252–271
18.
Afrotropical realm
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See Tropical Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa for other aspects. The Afrotropical realm is one of the Earths eight biogeographic realms and it was formerly known as the Ethiopian Zone or Ethiopian Region. Most of the Afrotropic, with the exception of Africas southern tip, has a tropical climate, South of the Sahara, two belts of tropical grassland and savanna run east and west across the continent, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ethiopian Highlands. Immediately south of the Sahara lies the Sahel belt, a zone of semi-arid short grassland. Rainfall increases further south in the Sudanian Savanna, also simply as the Sudan. The Sudanian Savanna is home to two great flooded grasslands, the Sudd wetland in South Sudan, and the Niger Inland Delta in Mali, the forest-savanna mosaic is a transitional zone between the grasslands and the belt of tropical moist broadleaf forests near the equator. South Arabia, expressed as being mostly Yemen and parts of western Oman, some of the notable are Jabal Bura, Jabal Raymah, and Jabal Badaj in the Yemeni highland escarpment, and the seasonal forests in eastern Yemen and the Dhofar region of Oman. Other woodlands scatter the land and are small and are predominantly juniper or acacia forests. The forest zone, a belt of tropical moist broadleaf forests. The Upper Guinean forests of West Africa extend along the coast from Guinea to Togo, the largest tropical forest zone in Africa is the Congolian forests of the Congo Basin in Central Africa. A belt of tropical moist broadleaf forest also runs along the Indian Ocean coast, acacia-Commiphora grasslands Serengeti Afromontane region, from the Ethiopian Highlands to the Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa, including the East African Rift. Distinctive flora, including Podocarpus and Afrocarpus, as well as giant Lobelias, Madagascar and neighboring islands form a distinctive sub-region of the realm, with numerous endemic taxa like the lemurs. Madagascar and the Seychelles are old pieces of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, other Indian Ocean islands, like the Comoros and Mascarene Islands, are volcanic islands that formed more recently. Madagascar contains several important biospheres, as its biodiversity and ratio of endemicism is extremely high, the Afrotropical realm is home to a number of endemic plant families. Madagascar and the Indian Ocean Islands are home to ten families of flowering plants, eight are endemic to Madagascar, one to Seychelles. Twelve plant families are endemic or nearly endemic to South Africa of which five are endemic to the Cape floristic province, other endemic Afrotropic families include Barbeyaceae, Montiniaceae, Myrothamnaceae and Oliniaceae. The East African Great Lakes are the center of biodiversity of many freshwater fishes, the central rivers fauna comprises 194 fish species, with 119 endemics and only 33 restricted to small areas. The Afrotropic has various endemic bird families, including ostriches, sunbirds, the bird, guineafowl
19.
Indian subcontinent
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Geologically, the Indian subcontinent is related to the land mass that rifted from Gondwana and merged with the Eurasian plate nearly 55 million years ago. Geographically, it is the region in south-central Asia delineated by the Himalayas in the north, the Hindu Kush in the west. Politically, the Indian subcontinent usually includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, sometimes, the term South Asia is used interchangeably with Indian subcontinent. There is no consensus about which countries should be included in each and it is first attested in 1845 to refer to the North and South Americas, before they were regarded as separate continents. Its use to refer to the Indian subcontinent is seen from the twentieth century. It was especially convenient for referring to the region comprising both the British India and the states under British Paramountcy. The term Indian subcontinent also has a geological significance and it was, like the various continents, a part of the supercontinent of Gondwana. A series of tectonic splits caused formation of basins, each drifting in various directions. The geological region called the Greater India once included the Madagascar, Seychelles, Antartica, as a geological term, Indian subcontinent has meant that region formed from the collision of the Indian basin with Eurasia nearly 55 million years ago, towards the end of Paleocene. The Indian subcontinent has been a particularly common in the British Empire. The region, state Mittal and Thursby, has also labelled as India, Greater India. The BBC and some sources refer to the region as the Asian Subcontinent. Some academics refer to it as South Asian Subcontinent, the terms Indian subcontinent and South Asia are sometimes used interchangeably. There is no accepted definition on which countries are a part of South Asia or Indian subcontinent. In dictionary entries, the term subcontinent signifies a large, distinguishable subdivision of a continent, the region experienced high volcanic activity and plate subdivisions, creating Madagascar, Seychelles, Antartica, Austrolasia and the Indian subcontinent basin. The Indian subcontinent drifted northeastwards, colliding with the Eurasian plate nearly 55 million years ago and this geological region largely includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The zone where the Eurasian and Indian subcontinent plates meet remains one of the active areas. The English term mainly continues to refer to the Indian subcontinent, physiographically, it is a peninsular region in south-central Asia delineated by the Himalayas in the north, the Hindu Kush in the west, and the Arakanese in the east
20.
Indomalayan realm
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The Indomalayan realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms. It extends across most of South and Southeast Asia and into the parts of East Asia. Indomalaya also includes the Philippines, lowland Taiwan, and Japans Ryukyu Islands, the tropical moist forests of Indomalaya are mostly dominated by trees of the dipterocarp family. The Indian Subcontinent bioregion covers most of India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, the Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and Himalaya are a major biogeographic boundary between the subtropical and tropical flora and fauna of the Indian subcontinent and the temperate-climate Palearctic realm. The Indochina bioregion includes most of mainland Southeast Asia, including Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, malesia is a botanical province which straddles the boundary between Indomalaya and Australasia. It includes the Malay Peninsula and the western Indonesian islands, the Philippines, the eastern Indonesian islands, the flora of Indomalaya blends elements from the ancient supercontinents of Laurasia and Gondwana. India collided with Asia 30-45 MYA, and exchanged species, two orders of mammals, the colugos and treeshrews, are endemic to the realm, as are families Craseonycteridae, Diatomyidae, Platacanthomyidae, Tarsiidae and Hylobatidae. Large mammals characteristic of Indomalaya include the leopard, tigers, water buffalos, Asian Elephant, Indian Rhinoceros, Javan Rhinoceros, Malayan Tapir, orangutans, Indomalaya has three endemic bird families, the Irenidae, Megalaimidae and Rhabdornithidae. Also characteristic are pheasants, pittas, Old World babblers, more information is available under Indomalayan realm fauna. Malesia Sundaland Ecoregions of India Ecoregions of the Philippines Map of the Indomalaya ecozone. Wikramanayake, E. E. Dinerstein, C. J. Loucks, D. M. Olson, J. Morrison, J. L. Lamoreux, M. McKnight, terrestrial ecoregions of the Indo-Pacific, a conservation assessment
21.
Australasian realm
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The Australasian realm is an biogeographic realm that is coincident, but not synonymous, with the geographical region of Australasia. The Australasian realm also includes several Pacific island groups, including the Bismarck Archipelago, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, New Zealand and its surrounding islands are a distinctive sub-region of the Australasian realm. The rest of Indonesia is part of the Indomalayan realm, from an ecological perspective the Australasian realm is a distinct region with a common geologic and evolutionary history and a great many unique plants and animals. In this context, Australasia is limited to Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, New Caledonia, the biological dividing line from the Indomalayan realm of tropical Asia is the Wallace Line, Borneo and Bali lie on the western, Asian side. These three land masses have been separated from other continents, and from one another, for millions of years. All of Australasia shares the Antarctic flora, although the northern, Australia, New Guinea, and Tasmania are separated from one another by shallow continental shelves, and were linked together when the sea level was lower during ice ages. They share a similar fauna which includes marsupial and monotreme mammals, eucalypts are the predominant trees in much of Australia and New Guinea. New Zealand has no land mammals, but also had ratite birds, including the kiwi. Note that this zonation is based on flora, animals do not necessarily follow the same biogeographic boundaries, in the present case, many birds occur in both Indomalayan and Australasian regions, but not across the whole of either. On the other hand, there are few faunistic commonalities shared only by Australia and New Zealand, meanwhile, Australia, Melanesia and the Wallacea are united by a large share of similar animals, but few of these occur farther into the Pacific. On the other hand, much of the Polynesian fauna is related to that of Melanesia, Australasia Oceania Panda. org, Map of the Ecozones
22.
Nearctic realm
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The Nearctic is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting the Earths land surface. The Nearctic realm covers most of North America, including Greenland, Central Florida, the Canadian Shield bioregion extends across the northern portion of the continent, from the Aleutian Islands to Newfoundland. It includes the Nearctics Arctic Tundra and Boreal forest ecoregions, in terms of floristic provinces, it is represented by part of the Canadian Province of the Circumboreal Region. In terms of provinces, it is represented by the North American Atlantic Region. In terms of provinces, it is represented by the Rocky Mountain region. In terms of provinces, it is represented by the Madrean Region. North America later split from Eurasia, North America has been joined by land bridges to both Asia and South America since then, which allowed an exchange of plant and animal species between the continents, the Great American Interchange. The two realms are included in a single Holarctic realm. Now extinct in the Nearctic The American cheetah now extinct worldwide One bird family, the Holarctic has four endemic families, divers, grouse, auks, and the waxwings. The scarab beetle families Pleocomidae and Diphyllostomatidae are also endemic to the Nearctic, the fly species Cynomya cadaverina is also found in high numbers in this area. Plants families endemic or nearly endemic to the Nearctic include the Crossosomataceae, Simmondsiaceae, freshwater Ecoregions of North America, A Conservation Assessment Washington, DC, Island Press. The Eternal Frontier, an Ecological History of North America and its Peoples, ricketts, Taylor H. Eric Dinerstein, David M. Olson, Colby J. Loucks, et al. Terrestrial Ecoregions of North America, a Conservation Assessment, map of the ecozones Nearctica, The Natural World of North America Nearctic Region
23.
Neotropical realm
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The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting the Earths land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas, in biogeography, the Neotropic or Neotropical realm is one of the eight terrestrial realms. 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 and its fauna and flora are distinct from the Nearctic because of the long separation of the two continents. The formation of the Isthmus of Panama joined the two continents two to three years ago, precipitating the Great American Interchange, an important biogeographical event. These rainforest ecoregions are one of the most important reserves of biodiversity on Earth and these rainforests are also home to a diverse array of indigenous peoples, who to varying degrees persist in their autonomous and traditional cultures and subsistence within this environment. Nevertheless, amidst these declining circumstances this vast reservoir of human diversity continues to survive, in South America alone, some 350–400 indigenous languages and dialects are still living, in about 37 distinct language families and a further number of unclassified and isolate languages. Many of these languages and their cultures are also endangered, laurel forest and other cloud forest are subtropical and mild temperate forest, found in areas with high humidity and relatively stable and mild temperatures. Tropical rainforest, tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests are highlight in Southern North America, Amazonia, Caribbean, Central America, Northern Andes, the bioregion also includes tropical savanna and tropical dry forest ecoregions. Eastern South America includes the Caatinga xeric shrublands of northeastern Brazil, the broad Cerrado grasslands and savannas of the Brazilian Plateau, and the Pantanal and Chaco grasslands. The diverse Atlantic forests of eastern Brazil are separated from the forests of Amazonia by the Caatinga and Cerrado, the Orinoco is a region of humid forested broadleaf forest and wetland primarily comprising the drainage basin for the Orinoco River and other adjacent lowland forested areas. This region includes most of Venezuela and parts of Colombia and these magnificent rainforests are endangered by extensive logging and their replacement by fast-growing non-native pines and eucalyptus. After the final breakup of the Gondwana about 110 million years ago, South America was separated from Africa and drifted north, the long-term effect of the exchange was the extinction of many South American species, mostly by outcompetition by northern species. 31 bird families are endemic to the Neotropical realm, over twice the number of any other realm and they include tanagers, rheas, tinamous, curassows, antbirds, ovenbirds, and toucans. Bird families originally unique to the Neotropics include hummingbirds and wrens, Neotropical fishes include more than 5,700 species, and represent at least 66 distinct lineages in continental freshwaters. The well-known red-bellied piranha is endemic to the Neotropic realm, occupying a larger area than any other piranha species. Plant families that originated in the Neotropic include Bromeliaceae, Cannaceae and Heliconiaceae, historical Biogeography of Neotropical Freshwater Fishes. 424 pp. ISBN 978-0-520-26868-5 Bequaert, Joseph C, an Introductory Study of Polistes in the United States and Canada with Descriptions of Some New North and South American Forms
24.
Alfred Russel Wallace
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Alfred Russel Wallace OM FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, and biologist. He is best known for conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection. This prompted Darwin to publish his own ideas in On the Origin of Species and he was considered the 19th centurys leading expert on the geographical distribution of animal species and is sometimes called the father of biogeography. Wallace was one of the leading thinkers of the 19th century. Wallace was strongly attracted to unconventional ideas and his advocacy of spiritualism and his belief in a non-material origin for the higher mental faculties of humans strained his relationship with some members of the scientific establishment. Aside from scientific work, he was a social activist who was critical of what he considered to be an unjust social and his interest in natural history resulted in his being one of the first prominent scientists to raise concerns over the environmental impact of human activity. Since its publication in 1869 it has never been out of print, Wallace had financial difficulties throughout much of his life. Alfred Wallace was born in the Welsh village of Llanbadoc, near Usk and he was the seventh of nine children of Thomas Vere Wallace and Mary Anne Greenell. Mary Anne was English, Thomas Wallace was probably of Scottish ancestry and his family, like many Wallaces, claimed a connection to William Wallace, a leader of Scottish forces during the Wars of Scottish Independence in the 13th century. Thomas Wallace graduated in law, but never practised law and he owned some income-generating property, but bad investments and failed business ventures resulted in a steady deterioration of the familys financial position. His mother was from a middle-class English family from Hertford, north of London, when Wallace was five years old, his family moved to Hertford. There he attended Hertford Grammar School until financial difficulties forced his family to him in 1836. Wallace then moved to London to board with his older brother John and this was a stopgap measure until William, his oldest brother, was ready to take him on as an apprentice surveyor. While in London, Alfred attended lectures and read books at the London Mechanics Institute, here he was exposed to the radical political ideas of the Welsh social reformer Robert Owen and of Thomas Paine. He left London in 1837 to live with William and work as his apprentice for six years, at the end of 1839, they moved to Kington, Hereford, near the Welsh border, before eventually settling at Neath in Glamorgan in Wales. Between 1840 and 1843, Wallace did land surveying work in the countryside of the west of England, by the end of 1843, Williams business had declined due to difficult economic conditions, and Wallace, at the age of 20, left in January. One result of Wallaces early travels is a controversy about his nationality. Since Wallace was born in Monmouthshire, some sources have considered him to be Welsh, one Wallace scholar has stated that the most reasonable interpretation is therefore that he was an Englishman born in Wales
25.
Oceanian realm
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The Oceanian realm is one of the World Wildlife Fund-WWF biogeographic realms, and is unique in not including any continental land mass. It is the smallest in area of the WWF realms. This realm includes the islands of the Pacific Ocean in, Micronesia, the Fijian Islands, the Hawaiian islands, New Zealand, Australia, and most of Melanesia including New Guinea, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and New Caledonia are included within the Australasian realm. Oceania is geologically the youngest realm and they were created either by hotspot volcanism, or as island arcs pushed upward by the collision and subduction of tectonic plates. The islands range from tiny islets, sea stacks and coral atolls to large islands, like Hawaii. The climate of Oceanias islands is tropical or subtropical, and range from humid to seasonally dry, hawaiis high volcanoes, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, are home to some rare tropical Montane grasslands and shrublands. Since the islands of Oceania were never connected by land to a continent, once they reached the islands, the ancestors of Oceanias present flora and fauna adapted to life on the islands. Other adaptations to island ecologies include gigantism, dwarfism, and among birds, land plants disperse by several different means. Pandanus trees are ubiquitous across Oceania. Easter Island has some plants from South America such as the totora reed, dispersal across the ocean is difficult for most land animals, and Oceania has relatively few indigenous land animals compared to other realms. Birds are relatively common, including many seabirds and some species of birds whose ancestors may have been blown out to sea by storms. Some birds evolved into flightless species after their ancestors arrived, including species of rails. A number of islands have indigenous lizards, including geckoes and skinks, with the exception of bats, which live on most of the island groups, there are few if any indigenous mammal species in Oceania. Many animal and plant species have been introduced by humans in two main waves, malayo-Polynesian settlers brought pigs, dogs, chickens and polynesian rats to many islands, and had spread across the whole of Oceania by 1200 CE. From the seventeenth century onwards European settlers brought other animals, including cats, cattle, horses, small Asian mongoose, sheep, goats, the arrival of humans on these island groups often resulted in disruption of the indigenous ecosystems and waves of species extinctions. The island, once lushly forested, is now mostly windswept grasslands, more recently, Guams native bird and lizard species were decimated by the introduction of the brown tree snake in the 1940s
26.
Antarctic realm
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Antarctica is one of eight terrestrial biogeographic realms. The ecosystem includes Antarctica and several groups in the southern Atlantic. Antarcticas two flowering plant species, the Antarctic hair grass and Antarctic pearlwort, are found on the northern and western parts of the Antarctic Peninsula, Antarctica is also home to a diversity of animal life, including penguins, seals, and whales. These islands have a milder climate than Antarctica proper, and support a greater diversity of tundra plants, although they are all too windy. The ocean there is so full of phytoplankton because around the ice continent water rises from the depths to the light flooded surface, on August 20,2014, scientists confirmed the existence of microorganisms living 800 metres below the ice of Antarctica. Millions of years ago, Antarctica was warmer and wetter, and supported the Antarctic flora, including forests of podocarps, Antarctica was also part of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwanaland, which gradually broke up by continental drift starting 110 million years ago. The separation of South America from Antarctica 30-35 million years ago allowed the Antarctic Circumpolar Current to form, the Antarctic flora subsequently died out in Antarctica, but is still an important component of the flora of southern Neotropic and Australasia, which were also former parts of Gondwana. Some botanists recognize an Antarctic Floristic Kingdom that includes Antarctica, New Zealand, four tundra ecoregions are recognized, Terauds, A, Chown, SL, Morgan, F, Peat, HJ, Watts, D, et al. CS1 maint, Explicit use of et al
27.
Subarctic climate
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The subarctic climate is a climate characterised by long, usually very cold winters, and short, cool to mild summers. It is found on large landmasses, away from the effects of an ocean. These climates represent Köppen climate classification Dfc, Dwc, Dsc, Dfd, Dwd and Dsd. This type of climate offers some of the most extreme seasonal temperature variations found on the planet, in winter, temperatures can drop to −40 °C and in summer, record low temperatures can be as cold as −60 °C. With 5–7 consecutive months where the temperature is below freezing. Summer warmth is insufficient to thaw more than a few surface feet, seasonal thaw penetrates from 2 to 14 ft, depending on latitude, aspect, and type of ground. Some northern areas with subarctic climates located near oceans, have milder winters and no permafrost, the frost-free season is very short, varying from about 45 to 100 days at most, and a freeze can occur during any month in many areas. Most subarctic climates have very little precipitation, typically no more than 380 mm over an entire year, a notable exception to this pattern is that subarctic climates occurring at high altitudes in otherwise temperate regions have extremely high precipitation due to orographic lift. Mount Washington, with temperatures typical of a climate, receives an average rain-equivalent of 101.91 inches of precipitation per year.5 metres that does not melt until June. Vegetation in regions with subarctic climates is generally of low diversity, as only hardy species can survive the long winters, trees are mostly limited to conifers, as few broadleaved trees are able to survive the very low temperatures in winter. This type of forest is known as taiga, a term which is sometimes applied to the climate found therein as well. Even though the diversity may be low, numbers are high, the process by which plants become acclimated to cold temperatures is called hardening. In some areas, ice has scoured rock surfaces bare, entirely stripping off the overburden, elsewhere rock basins have been formed and stream courses dammed, creating countless lakes. The Tatra Mountains in Poland, above 800m, the Eastern Anatolia, between 1,600 and 2,100 meters – Turkey. The Pyrenees, between 1,600 and 2,100 meters – Andorra, France and Spain, further north in Siberia, continentality increases so much that winters can be exceptionally severe, averaging below −38 °C, even though the hottest month still averages more than 10 °C. This creates Dfd, Dwd and Dsd climates, one example is parts of the Snowy Mountains in Australia, although theyre more alpine than true subarctic. In China and Mongolia, as one moves southwestwards or towards lower altitudes, temperatures increase, Boreal ecology Boreal forest Plants of continental subarctic climate Köppen climate classification Subantarctic
28.
Temperate climate
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In geography, temperate or tepid latitudes of Earth lie between the tropics and the polar regions. The temperatures in these regions are relatively moderate, rather than extremely hot or cold. The north temperate zone extends from the Tropic of Cancer to the Arctic Circle, the south temperate zone extends from the Tropic of Capricorn to the Antarctic Circle. In some climate classifications, the zone is often divided into several smaller climate zones. These include Humid subtropical climate, Mediterranean climate, oceanic, subtropical climates are located between 23. 5° and 35. 0° north or south latitude on the eastern or leeward sides of landmasses. This climate has long, generally hot, summers and short, mild winters and these climates may occur in southern Asia, the southeastern United States, parts of eastern Australia, and in eastern coastal South America. Mediterranean climates, occur between 30° and 42° north and south latitude, on the sides of landmasses. This climate has hot summers and short mild winters, however, seasonal rainfall is the opposite of that of the subtropical humid type. These climates occur near the rimlands of the Mediterranean Sea, in western Australia, in California, the oceanic climates occur in the higher middle latitudes, between 45° and 60° north and south latitude. They are created by the flow from the cool high latitude oceans to their west. This causes the climate to have cool summers and cool winters, annual rainfall is spread throughout the entire year. Regions with this climate include Western Europe, northwestern North America, the Continental climates occur in middle latitudes, between 35° or 40° to 55°. These climates are normally inland or on sides of landmasses. They feature warm to hot summers and cold winters, with a large temperature variation. Regions with this climate include northern temperate Asia, the northern United States, southern Canada, the vast majority of the worlds human population resides in temperate zones, especially in the northern hemisphere, due to its greater mass of land. The richest temperate flora in the world is found in southern Africa, geographical zone Habitat Köppen climate classification Middle latitudes Polar circle Subtropics
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Eurasia
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Eurasia /jʊˈreɪʒə/ is a combined continental landmass of Europe and Asia. The term is a portmanteau of its constituent continents, in geology, Eurasia is often considered as a single rigid megablock. However, the rigidity of Eurasia is debated based on the paleomagnet data, Eurasia covers around 55,000,000 square kilometres, or around 36. 2% of the Earths total land area. The landmass contains around 5.0 billion people, equating to approximately 70% of the human population, humans first settled in Eurasia between 60,000 and 125,000 years ago. Physiographically, Eurasia is a single continent, the concepts of Europe and Asia as distinct continents date back to antiquity and their borders are geologically arbitrary. Eurasia is connected to Africa at the Suez Canal, and Eurasia is sometimes combined with Africa as the largest contiguous landmass on Earth called Afro-Eurasia. Eurasia formed 375 to 325 million years ago with the merging of Siberia, Kazakhstania, and Baltica, chinese cratons collided with Siberias southern coast. Eurasia has been the host of ancient civilizations, including those based in Mesopotamia. In the Axial Age, a belt of civilizations stretched through the Eurasian subtropical zone from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This belt became the mainstream of world history for two millennia, originally, “Eurasia” is a geographical notion, in this sense, it is simply the biggest continent, the combined landmass of Europe and Asia. However, geopolitically, the word has different meanings, reflecting the specific geopolitical interests of each nation. “Eurasia” is one of the most important geopolitical concepts, as Zbigniew Brzezinski observed, how America manages Eurasia is critical. A power that dominates “Eurasia” would control two of the three most advanced and economically productive regions. About 75 per cent of the people live in “Eurasia”. “Eurasia” accounts for about three-fourths of the known energy resources. ”At the moment one of the most prominent projects of the European Union is the Russia - EU Four Common Spaces Initiative. A political and economic union of former Soviet states named the Eurasian Economic Union was established in 2015, the Russian concept of “Eurasia” corresponded initially more or less to the land area of Imperial Russia in 1914, including parts of Eastern Europe. One of Russias main geopolitical interests lies in ever closer integration with those countries that it considers part of “Eurasia. ”Every two years since 1996 a meeting of most Asian and European countries is organised as the Asia-Europe Meeting. In ancient times, the Greeks classified Europe and Asia as separate lands, where to draw the dividing line between the two regions is still a matter of discussion
30.
Bering Sea
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The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises a deep basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves. The Bering Sea is separated from the Gulf of Alaska by the Alaska Peninsula, Bristol Bay is the portion of the Bering Sea which separates the Alaska Peninsula from mainland Alaska. The Bering Sea ecosystem includes resources within the jurisdiction of the United States and Russia, the interaction between currents, sea ice, and weather makes for a vigorous and productive ecosystem. Most scientists believe that during the most recent ice age, sea level was low enough to humans to migrate east on foot from Asia to North America across what is now the Bering Strait. Other animals including megafauna migrated in both directions and this is commonly referred to as the Bering land bridge and is believed by most, though not all scientists, to be the first point of entry of humans into the Americas. There is a portion of the Kula Plate in the Bering Sea. The Kula Plate is an ancient tectonic plate that used to subduct under Alaska, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Bering Sea as follows, On the North. The Southern limit of the Chuckchi Sea, Islands of the Bering Sea include, Pribilof Islands, including St. Paul Island Komandorski Islands, including Bering Island St. Lawrence Island Diomede Islands King Island St. The Bering Sea shelf break is the dominant driver of productivity in the Bering Sea. This zone, where the continental shelf drops off into the North Aleutians Basin is also known as the “Greenbelt”. Nutrient upwelling from the waters of the Aleutian basin flowing up the slope. The second driver of productivity in the Bering Sea is seasonal sea ice that, in part, seasonal melting of sea ice causes an influx of lower salinity water into the middle and other shelf areas, causing stratification and hydrographic effects which influence productivity. In addition to the hydrographic and productivity influence of melting sea ice, some evidence suggests that great changes to the Bering Sea ecosystem have already occurred. Warm water conditions in the summer of 1997 resulted in a bloom of low energy coccolithophorid phytoplankton. A long record of carbon isotopes, which is reflective of primary trends of the Bering Sea. Trends in carbon isotope ratios in whale baleen samples suggest that a 30–40% decline in average seasonal primary productivity has occurred over the last 50 years, the implication is that the carrying capacity of the Bering Sea is much lower now than it has been in the past. Other marine mammals include walrus, Steller sea lion, northern fur seal, orca, the Bering Sea is very important to the seabirds of the world
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Biogeography
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Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through time. Organisms and biological communities often vary in a regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, isolation, phytogeography is the branch of biogeography that studies the distribution of plants. Zoogeography is the branch that studies distribution of animals, Biogeography is an integrative field of inquiry that unites concepts and information from ecology, evolutionary biology, geology, and physical geography. The short-term interactions within a habitat and species of organisms describe the application of biogeography. Historical biogeography describes the long-term, evolutionary periods of time for broader classifications of organisms, early scientists, beginning with Carl Linnaeus, contributed theories to the contributions of the development of biogeography as a science. Beginning in the century, Europeans explored the world and discovered the biodiversity of life. Linnaeus initiated the ways to classify organisms through his exploration of undiscovered territories, the patterns of species distribution across geographical areas can usually be explained through a combination of historical factors such as, speciation, extinction, continental drift, and glaciation. Through observing the distribution of species, we can see associated variations in sea level, river routes, habitat. Additionally, this science considers the constraints of landmass areas and isolation. As writer David Quammen put it. biogeography does more than ask Which species, and, what is sometimes more crucial, Why not. Modern biogeography often employs the use of Geographic Information Systems, to understand the factors affecting organism distribution, often mathematical models and GIS are employed to solve ecological problems that have a spatial aspect to them. Biogeography is most keenly observed on the worlds islands and these habitats are often much more manageable areas of study because they are more condensed than larger ecosystems on the mainland. They can then apply their understanding to similar but more complex mainland habitats, Islands are very diverse in their biomes, ranging from the tropical to arctic climates. This diversity in habitat allows for a range of species study in different parts of the world. One scientist who recognized the importance of geographic locations was Charles Darwin. Two chapters in On the Origin of Species were devoted to geographical distribution, the first discoveries that contributed to the development of biogeography as a science began in the mid-18th century, as Europeans explored the world and discovered the biodiversity of life. During the 18th century most views on the world were shaped around religion and for many natural theologists, Carl Linnaeus, in the mid-18th century, initiated the ways to classify organisms through his exploration of undiscovered territories. When he noticed that species were not as perpetual as he believed, when Noah’s ark landed on Mount Ararat and the waters receded, the animals dispersed throughout different elevations on the mountain
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Tundra
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In physical geography, tundra is a type of biome where the tree growth is hindered by low temperatures and short growing seasons. The term tundra comes through Russian тундра from the Kildin Sami word tūndâr uplands, there are three types of tundra, Arctic tundra, alpine tundra, and Antarctic tundra. In tundra, the vegetation is composed of shrubs, sedges and grasses, mosses. Scattered trees grow in tundra regions. The ecotone between the tundra and the forest is known as the line or timberline. Arctic tundra occurs in the far Northern Hemisphere, north of the taiga belt, the word tundra usually refers only to the areas where the subsoil is permafrost, or permanently frozen soil. Permafrost tundra includes vast areas of northern Russia and Canada, the polar tundra is home to several peoples who are mostly nomadic reindeer herders, such as the Nganasan and Nenets in the permafrost area. Arctic tundra contains areas of landscape and is frozen for much of the year. The soil there is frozen from 25–90 cm down, and it is impossible for trees to grow, instead, bare and sometimes rocky land can only support low growing plants such as moss, heath, and lichen. There are two seasons, winter and summer, in the polar tundra areas. During the winter it is cold and dark, with the average temperature around −28 °C. However, extreme temperatures on the tundra do not drop as low as those experienced in taiga areas further south. During the summer, temperatures rise somewhat, and the top layer of seasonally-frozen soil melts, the tundra is covered in marshes, lakes, bogs and streams during the warm months. Generally daytime temperatures during the rise to about 12 °C. Arctic tundras are sometimes the subject of conservation programs. In Canada and Russia, many of areas are protected through a national Biodiversity Action Plan. Tundra tends to be windy, with winds often blowing upwards of 50–100 km/h, however, in terms of precipitation, it is desert-like, with only about 15–25 cm falling per year. Although precipitation is light, evaporation is also relatively minimal, there is a natural pattern of accumulation of fuel and wildfire which varies depending on the nature of vegetation and terrain
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Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
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Scandinavia
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Scandinavia /ˌskændᵻˈneɪviə/ is a historical and cultural region in Northern Europe characterized by a common ethnocultural North Germanic heritage and mutually intelligible North Germanic languages. The term Scandinavia always includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, the remote Norwegian islands of Svalbard and Jan Mayen are usually not seen as a part of Scandinavia, nor is Greenland, an overseas territory of Denmark. This looser definition almost equates to that of the Nordic countries, in Nordic languages, only Denmark, Norway and Sweden are commonly included in the definition of Scandinavia. In English usage, Scandinavia sometimes refers to the geographical area, the name Scandinavia originally referred vaguely to the formerly Danish, now Swedish, region Scania. Icelanders and the Faroese are to a significant extent descended from the Norse, Finland is mainly populated by Finns, with a minority of approximately 5% of Swedish speakers. A small minority of Sami people live in the north of Scandinavia. The Danish, Norwegian and Swedish languages form a continuum and are known as the Scandinavian languages—all of which are considered mutually intelligible with one another. Faroese and Icelandic, sometimes referred to as insular Scandinavian languages, are intelligible in continental Scandinavian languages only to a limited extent, Finnish and Meänkieli are closely related to each other and more distantly to the Sami languages, but are entirely unrelated to the Scandinavian languages. Apart from these, German, Yiddish and Romani are recognized minority languages in Scandinavia, the southern and by far most populous regions of Scandinavia have a temperate climate. Scandinavia extends north of the Arctic Circle, but has mild weather for its latitude due to the Gulf Stream. Much of the Scandinavian mountains have a tundra climate. There are many lakes and moraines, legacies of the last glacial period, Scandinavia usually refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Some sources argue for the inclusion of the Faroe Islands, Finland and Iceland, though that broader region is known by the countries concerned as Norden. Before this time, the term Scandinavia was familiar mainly to classical scholars through Pliny the Elders writings, and was used vaguely for Scania, as a political term, Scandinavia was first used by students agitating for Pan-Scandinavianism in the 1830s. After a visit to Sweden, Andersen became a supporter of early political Scandinavism, the term is often defined according to the conventions of the cultures that lay claim to the term in their own use. More precisely, and subject to no dispute, is that Finland is included in the broader term Nordic countries, various promotional agencies of the Nordic countries in the United States serve to promote market and tourism interests in the region. The official tourist boards of Scandinavia sometimes cooperate under one umbrella, Norways government entered one year later. All five Nordic governments participate in the joint promotional efforts in the United States through the Scandinavian Tourist Board of North America, Scandinavia can thus be considered a subset of the Nordic countries
35.
Taiga
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Taiga also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces and larches. The taiga is the worlds largest biome apart from the oceans, in North America it covers most of inland Canada and Alaska as well as parts of the extreme northern continental United States, where it is known as the Northwoods or North woods. However, the tree species, the length of the growing season. Hoffman discusses the origin of this use in North America. Although at high elevations taiga grades into alpine tundra through Krummholz, it is not an alpine biome only like subalpine forest, Taiga is the worlds largest land biome, and makes up 29% of the worlds forest cover, the largest areas are located in Russia and Canada. The taiga is the terrestrial biome with the lowest annual average temperatures after the tundra, extreme winter minimums in the northern taiga are typically lower than those of the tundra. The lowest reliably recorded temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere were recorded in the taiga of northeastern Russia, the taiga or boreal forest has a subarctic climate with very large temperature range between seasons, but the long and cold winter is the dominant feature. This climate is classified as Dfc, Dwc, Dsc, Dfd and Dwd in the Köppen climate classification scheme, meaning that the summer lasts 1–3 months. In Siberian taiga the average temperature of the coldest month is between −6 °C and −50 °C, the mean annual temperature generally varies from -5 °C to 5 °C, but there are taiga areas in eastern Siberia and interior Alaska-Yukon where the mean annual reaches down to -10 °C. According to some sources, the boreal forest grades into a mixed forest when mean annual temperature reaches about 3 °C. The winters, with temperatures below freezing, last five to seven months. Temperatures vary from −54 °C to 30 °C throughout the whole year, the summers, while short, are generally warm and humid. In much of the taiga, -20 °C would be a winter day temperature and 18 °C an average summer day. In Canada, Scandinavia and Finland, the season is often estimated by using the period of the year when the 24-hour average temperature is +5 °C or more. For the Taiga Plains in Canada, growing season varies from 80 to 150 days, some sources claim 130 days growing season as typical for the taiga. Other sources mention that 50–100 frost-free days are characteristic, data for locations in southwest Yukon gives 80–120 frost-free days. The closed canopy boreal forest in Kenozersky National Park near Plesetsk, Arkhangelsk Province, Russia, the longest growing season is found in the smaller areas with oceanic influences, in coastal areas of Scandinavia and Finland, the growing season of the closed boreal forest can be 145–180 days. High latitudes mean that the sun not rise far above the horizon
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Temperate broadleaf and mixed forest
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Temperate broadleaf and mixed forest is a temperate climate terrestrial biome, with broadleaf tree ecoregions, and with conifer and broadleaf tree mixed coniferous forest ecoregions. The term Temperate broadleaf and mixed forest is used by the World Wildlife Fund in global biogeography as one of the biome designations under which to organize ecoregions, the typical structure of these forests includes four layers. The uppermost layer is the canopy composed of mature trees ranging from 30 to 61 m high. Below the canopy is the three-layered, shade-tolerant understory that is roughly 9 to 15 m shorter than the canopy, the top layer of the understory is the sub-canopy composed of smaller mature trees, saplings, and suppressed juvenile canopy layer trees awaiting an opening in the canopy. Below the sub-canopy is the layer, composed of low growing woody plants. Typically the lowest growing layer is the cover or herbaceous layer. In the Northern hemisphere, characteristic dominant broadleaf trees in this biome include oaks, beeches, maples, the term mixed forest comes from the inclusion of coniferous trees as a canopy component of some of these forests. Typical coniferous trees include, Pines, firs, and spruces, in some areas of this biome the conifers may be a more important canopy species than the broadleaf species. In the Southern hemisphere, endemic genera such as Nothofagus and Eucalyptus occupy this biome, Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests occur in areas with distinct warm and cool season, which give it a moderate annual average temperature —3 to 15.6 °C. These forests occur in warm and rainy climates, sometimes also with a distinct dry season. A dry season occurs in the winter in East Asia and in summer on the wet fringe of the Mediterranean climate zones. Other areas, as in the central and upper eastern United States and southeastern Canada, have an even distribution of rainfall, annual rainfall is typically over 600 mm
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Temperate coniferous forest
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Temperate coniferous forest is a terrestrial biome found in temperate regions of the world with warm summers and cool winters and adequate rainfall to sustain a forest. In most temperate coniferous forests, evergreen conifers predominate, while some are a mix of conifers, Temperate evergreen forests are common in the coastal areas of regions that have mild winters and heavy rainfall, or inland in drier climates or mountain areas. Coniferous forests can be found in the United States, Canada, Europe, many species of tree inhabit these forests including cedar, cypress, Douglas fir, fir, juniper, pine, podocarpus, spruce, redwood and yew. The understory also contains a variety of herbaceous and shrub species. Structurally, these forests are rather simple, generally consisting of two layers, an overstory and understory, some forests may support an intermediate layer of shrubs. Pine forests support an understory that is generally dominated by grasses and herbaceous perennials. The moist conditions of rain forests generally support an understory of mosses, ferns. Temperate rain forests can be temperate coniferous forests or temperate broadleaf and these forests are quite rare, occurring in small areas of North America, southwestern South America and northern New Zealand. The Klamath-Siskiyou forests of northwestern California and southwestern Oregon is known for its variety of plant and animal species. In Russia, a coniferous forest, specifically pine or spruce forest is known as bor, bors typically grow on well-drained sandy soils, sandy clay soils and mild loams. The names of several Russian historical buildings and localities refer to the word bor as the place where they were built. Cedar hemlock douglas-fir forest Waring, Richard H.2002, in, Volume 2, The Earth system, biological and ecological dimensions of global environmental change. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, Temperate forest WWF - Temperate Coniferous Forest Ecoregions
38.
North America
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North America is a continent entirely within the Northern Hemisphere and almost all within the Western Hemisphere. It can also be considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the west and south by the Pacific Ocean, and to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea. North America covers an area of about 24,709,000 square kilometers, about 16. 5% of the land area. 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 565 million people in 23 independent states, or about 7. 5% of the worlds population, North America was reached by its first human populations during the last glacial period, via crossing the Bering land bridge. The so-called Paleo-Indian period is taken to have lasted until about 10,000 years ago, the Classic stage spans roughly the 6th to 13th centuries. The Pre-Columbian era ended with the migrations and the arrival of European settlers during the Age of Discovery. Present-day cultural and ethnic patterns reflect different kind of interactions between European colonists, indigenous peoples, African slaves and their descendants, European influences are strongest in the northern parts of the continent while indigenous and African influences are relatively stronger in the south. Because of the history of colonialism, most North Americans speak English, Spanish or French, the Americas are usually accepted as having been named after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci by the German cartographers Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann. Vespucci, who explored South America between 1497 and 1502, was the first European to suggest that the Americas were not the East Indies, but a different landmass previously unknown by Europeans. In 1507, Waldseemüller produced a map, in which he placed the word America on the continent of South America. He explained the rationale for the name in the accompanying book Cosmographiae Introductio, for Waldseemüller, no one should object to the naming of the land after its discoverer. He used the Latinized version of Vespuccis name, but in its feminine form America, following the examples of Europa, Asia and Africa. Later, other mapmakers extended the name America to the continent, In 1538. Some argue that the convention is to use the surname for naming discoveries except in the case of royalty, a minutely explored belief that has been advanced is that America was named for a Spanish sailor bearing the ancient Visigothic name of Amairick. Another is that the name is rooted in a Native American language, the term North America maintains various definitions in accordance with location and context. In Canadian English, North America may be used to refer to the United States, alternatively, usage sometimes includes Greenland and Mexico, as well as offshore islands
39.
Beringia
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It includes the Chukchi Sea, the Bering Sea, the Bering Strait, the Chukchi and Kamchatka Peninsulas in Russia as well as Alaska in the United States. The area includes land lying on the North American Plate and Siberian land east of the Chersky Range. Today, the land that is visible from the central part of the Bering land bridge are the Diomede Islands, the Pribilof Islands of St. Paul and St. George, St. Lawrence Island. The term Beringia was coined by the Swedish botanist Eric Hultén in 1937, during the ice ages, Beringia, like most of Siberia and all of North and Northeast China, was not glaciated because snowfall was very light. It was a grassland steppe, including the bridge, that stretched for hundreds of kilometres into the continents on either side. Before European colonization, Beringia was inhabited by the Yupik peoples on both sides of the straits and this culture remains in the region today along with others. In 2012, the governments of Russia and the United States announced a plan to establish a transboundary area of shared Beringian heritage. The underlying mechanism was first thought to be tectonics, but by 1930 changes in the icemass balance, the American arctic geologist David Hopkins redefined Beringia to include portions of Alaska and Northeast Asia. Beringia was later regarded as extending from the Verkhoyansk Mountains in the west to the Mackenzie River in the east. The distribution of plants in the genera Erythranthe and Pinus are good examples of this as genera members are found in Asia, during the Pleistocene epoch, global cooling led periodically to the expansion of glaciers and lowering of sea levels. This created land connections in various regions around the globe, today, the average water depth of the Bering Strait is 40–50 m, therefore the land bridge opened when the sea level dropped more than 50 m below the current level. Post-glacial rebound has continued to some sections of coast. During the last glacial period, enough of the water became frozen in the great ice sheets covering North America. For thousands of years the sea floors of many interglacial shallow seas were exposed, including those of the Bering Strait, the Chukchi Sea to the north, other land bridges around the world have emerged and disappeared in the same way. Beringias closeness to the sea created intermittent maritime cloud cover, which caused an interruption to the dry, in the Late Pleistocene, Beringia was a mosaic of biological communities. Commencing from c. 57,000 BP, steppe–tundra vegetation dominated large parts of Beringia with a diversity of grasses. There were patches of shrub tundra with isolated refugia of larch and spruce forests with birch and it has been proposed that the largest and most diverse megafaunal community residing in Beringia at this time could only have been sustained in a highly diverse and productive environment. These changes provided the most likely explanation for mammal migrations after c. 15,000 BP, as the warming provided increased forage for browsers, Beringia did not block the movement of most dry steppe-adapted large species such as saiga antelope, woolly mammoth, and caballid horses
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Mammal
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Mammals are any vertebrates within the class Mammalia, a clade of endothermic amniotes distinguished from reptiles by the possession of a neocortex, hair, three middle ear bones and mammary glands. All female mammals nurse their young with milk, secreted from the mammary glands, Mammals include the largest animals on the planet, the great whales. The basic body type is a quadruped, but some mammals are adapted for life at sea, in the air, in trees. The largest group of mammals, the placentals, have a placenta, Mammals range in size from the 30–40 mm bumblebee bat to the 30-meter blue whale. With the exception of the five species of monotreme, all modern mammals give birth to live young, most mammals, including the six most species-rich orders, belong to the placental group. The largest orders are the rodents, bats and Soricomorpha, the next three biggest orders, depending on the biological classification scheme used, are the Primates, the Cetartiodactyla, and the Carnivora. Living mammals are divided into the Yinotheria and Theriiformes There are around 5450 species of mammal, in some classifications, extant mammals are divided into two subclasses, the Prototheria, that is, the order Monotremata, and the Theria, or the infraclasses Metatheria and Eutheria. The marsupials constitute the group of the Metatheria, and include all living metatherians as well as many extinct ones. Much of the changes reflect the advances of cladistic analysis and molecular genetics, findings from molecular genetics, for example, have prompted adopting new groups, such as the Afrotheria, and abandoning traditional groups, such as the Insectivora. The mammals represent the only living Synapsida, which together with the Sauropsida form the Amniota clade, the early synapsid mammalian ancestors were sphenacodont pelycosaurs, a group that produced the non-mammalian Dimetrodon. At the end of the Carboniferous period, this group diverged from the line that led to todays reptiles. Some mammals are intelligent, with some possessing large brains, self-awareness, Mammals can communicate and vocalize in several different ways, including the production of ultrasound, scent-marking, alarm signals, singing, and echolocation. Mammals can organize themselves into fission-fusion societies, harems, and hierarchies, most mammals are polygynous, but some can be monogamous or polyandrous. They provided, and continue to provide, power for transport and agriculture, as well as commodities such as meat, dairy products, wool. Mammals are hunted or raced for sport, and are used as model organisms in science, Mammals have been depicted in art since Palaeolithic times, and appear in literature, film, mythology, and religion. Defaunation of mammals is primarily driven by anthropogenic factors, such as poaching and habitat destruction, Mammal classification has been through several iterations since Carl Linnaeus initially defined the class. No classification system is accepted, McKenna & Bell and Wilson & Reader provide useful recent compendiums. Though field work gradually made Simpsons classification outdated, it remains the closest thing to a classification of mammals
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Holarctic
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These regions are further subdivided into a variety of ecoregions. Many ecosystems, and the animal and plant communities that depend on them, are found across continents in large portions of this realm. The continuity of these results from the shared glacial history of the realm. The floristic Boreal Kingdom corresponds to the Holarctic realm, within the Holarctic realm, there are a variety of ecosystems. The type of ecosystem found in an area depends on the latitude, in the far north, a band of arctic tundra circles the shore of the Arctic Ocean. The ground beneath this land is permafrost, frozen year-round, in these difficult growing conditions, few plants can survive. South of the tundra, the boreal forest stretches across North America and this land is characterized by coniferous trees. South of here, the ecosystems become more diverse, some areas are covered in temperate grassland, while others are covered in temperate forest, dominated by deciduous trees. The southern extent of the Holarctic typically reaches into the desert, a variety of animal species are distributed across continents, throughout much of the Holarctic realm. Some of these included the brown bear, grey wolf, red fox, wolverine, moose, caribou, golden eagle, the brown bear is found in mountainous and semi-open areas distributed throughout the Holarctic. It once occupied much larger areas, but has driven out by human development. Today it is found in remaining wilderness areas. The grey wolf is found in a variety of habitats from tundra to desert. The red fox is an adaptable predator. It has the widest distribution of any terrestrial carnivore, and is adapted to a range of habitats. Like the wolf, it is distributed throughout the majority of the Holarctic, the wolverine is a large member of the weasel family found primarily in the arctic and in boreal forests, ranging south in mountainous regions. It is distributed in areas throughout Eurasia and North America. The moose is the largest member of the deer family and it is found throughout most of the boreal forest through continental Eurasia into Scandinavia, eastern North America, and boreal and montane regions of western North America
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Mediterranean Sea
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The sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a separate body of water. The name Mediterranean is derived from the Latin mediterraneus, meaning inland or in the middle of land and it covers an approximate area of 2.5 million km2, but its connection to the Atlantic is only 14 km wide. The Strait of Gibraltar is a strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Gibraltar. In oceanography, it is called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere. The Mediterranean Sea has a depth of 1,500 m. The sea is bordered on the north by Europe, the east by Asia and it is located between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E. Its west-east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Iskenderun, the seas average north-south length, from Croatia’s southern shore to Libya, is approximately 800 km. The Mediterranean Sea, including the Sea of Marmara, has an area of approximately 2,510,000 square km. The sea was an important route for merchants and travelers of ancient times that allowed for trade, the history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies. In addition, the Gaza Strip and the British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Akrotiri, the term Mediterranean derives from the Latin word mediterraneus, meaning amid the earth or between land, as it is between the continents of Africa, Asia and Europe. The Ancient Greek name Mesogeios, is similarly from μέσο, between + γη, land, earth) and it can be compared with the Ancient Greek name Mesopotamia, meaning between rivers. The Mediterranean Sea has historically had several names, for example, the Carthaginians called it the Syrian Sea and latter Romans commonly called it Mare Nostrum, and occasionally Mare Internum. Another name was the Sea of the Philistines, from the people inhabiting a large portion of its shores near the Israelites, the sea is also called the Great Sea in the General Prologue by Geoffrey Chaucer. In Ottoman Turkish, it has also been called Bahr-i Sefid, in Modern Hebrew, it has been called HaYam HaTikhon, the Middle Sea, reflecting the Seas name in ancient Greek, Latin, and modern languages in both Europe and the Middle East. Similarly, in Modern Arabic, it is known as al-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ, in Turkish, it is known as Akdeniz, the White Sea since among Turks the white colour represents the west. Several ancient civilisations were located around the Mediterranean shores, and were influenced by their proximity to the sea. It provided routes for trade, colonisation, and war, as well as food for numerous communities throughout the ages, due to the shared climate, geology, and access to the sea, cultures centered on the Mediterranean tended to have some extent of intertwined culture and history. Two of the most notable Mediterranean civilisations in classical antiquity were the Greek city states, later, when Augustus founded the Roman Empire, the Romans referred to the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum
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Mediterranean climate
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A Mediterranean climate /ˌmɛdɪtəˈreɪniən/ or dry summer climate, is the climate typical of the lands in the Mediterranean Basin. The Mediterranean climate is characterised by dry summers and mild, moist winters, Mediterranean climate zones are associated with the four large subtropical high pressure cells of the oceans, the Azores High, South Atlantic High, North Pacific High, and South Pacific High. These climatological high pressure cells migrate by latitude according to the angle of the Sun, shifting north-eastward in the summer. These semi-permanent high pressure systems play a role in the formation of the worlds subtropical and tropical deserts as well as the Mediterranean Basins climate. The Azores High is associated with the Mediterranean climate found in the Mediterranean Basin, the Sahara Desert, the South Atlantic High is similarly associated with the Namib Desert and Kalahari Desert, and the Mediterranean climate of the western part of South Africa. Under the Köppen climate classification, hot climates and cool dry-summer climates are often referred to as mediterranean. Under the Köppen climate system, the first letter indicates the climate group, temperate climates or C zones have an average temperature above 0 °C, but below 18 °C, in their coolest months. The second letter indicates the precipitation pattern, Köppen has defined a dry summer month as a month with less than 30 mm of precipitation and with less than one-third that of the wettest winter month. Some, however, use a 40 mm level, the third letter indicates the degree of summer heat, a represents an average temperature in the warmest month above 22 °C, while b indicates the average temperature in the warmest month below 22 °C. Under the Köppen classification, dry-summer climates usually occur on the sides of continents. Under Trewarthas system, at least eight months must have average temperatures of 10 °C or higher, during summer, regions of mediterranean climate are dominated by subtropical high pressure cells, with dry sinking air capping a surface marine layer of varying humidity and making rainfall unlikely. In many Mediterranean climates there is a strong character to daily temperatures in the warm months. The majority of the regions with mediterranean climates have relatively mild winters, however winter and summer temperatures can vary greatly between different regions with a mediterranean climate. Or to consider summer, Athens experiences rather high temperatures in that season, in contrast, San Francisco has cool summers with daily highs around. In North America, areas with Csc climate can be found in the Olympic, Cascade, Klamath and these locations are found at high altitude nearby lower altitude regions characterized by a warm-summer mediterranean climate or hot-summer mediterranean climate. A rare instance of this occurs in the tropics, on Haleakalā Summit in Hawaii. In South America, Csc regions can be found along the Andes in Chile, the town of Balmaceda is one of the few towns confirmed to have this climate. Small areas with a Csc climate can also be found at elevations in Corsica
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Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub
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Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund, is generally characterized by dry summers and rainy winters. 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 Earths plant species, much of the woody vegetation in Mediterranean-climate regions is sclerophyll, which means hard-leaved in Greek. Sclerophyll vegetation generally has small, dark leaves covered with an outer layer to retain moisture in the dry summer months. This is equivalent to about 40% of the plant species of the United States and Canada combined, forests are often found in riparian areas, where they receive more summer water. Coniferous forests also occur, especially around the Mediterranean, pine and deciduous oak forest are widespread across California Woodland, Oak woodlands are characteristic of the Mediterranean Basin and in California. Pine woodlands are also present in the Mediterranean Basin, savanna and grassland, The California Central Valley grasslands are the largest Mediterranean grassland eco-region, although these grasslands have mostly been converted to agriculture. The remaining woodlands feature mainly oak, walnut and pine, the cork oak savanna in Portugal, known as montado, is a good example of a mediterranean savanna. Shrubland, Shrublands are dense thickets of evergreen shrubs and small trees. They are most common near the seacoast, and are adapted to wind. Northern coastal scrub and coastal scrub, also known as soft chaparral. In some places shrublands are of the vegetation type, and in other places are the result of degradation of former forest or woodland by logging or overgrazing. Fire, both natural and human-caused, has played a role in shaping the ecology of Mediterranean ecoregions. The hot, dry summers make much of the prone to fires. Many of the plants are pyrophytes, or fire-loving, adapted or even depending on fire for reproduction, recycling of nutrients, and the removal of dead or senescent vegetation. The plant communities in these areas adapted to the frequent human-caused fires, the European shrublands have also been shaped by anthropogenic fire, historically associated with transhumance herding of sheep and goats. Mediterranean ecoregions are some of the most endangered and vulnerable on the planet, media related to Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub at Wikimedia Commons National Geographic Global 200 Ecoregions, Mediterranean Forest, Woodland and Scrub. Part of National Geographics Wild World Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World mapping project, Forest Sciences Centre of Catalonia FAO
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Endemism
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The extreme opposite of endemism is cosmopolitan distribution. An alternative term for a species that is endemic is precinctive, the word endemic is from New Latin endēmicus, from Greek ενδήμος, endēmos, native. Endēmos is formed of en meaning in, and dēmos meaning the people, the term, precinctive, has been suggested by some scientists, and was first used in botany by MacCaughey in 1917. It is the equivalent of endemism, precinction was perhaps first used by Frank and McCoy. That definition excludes artificial confinement of examples by humans in far-off botanical gardens or zoological parks, physical, climatic, and biological factors can contribute to endemism. The orange-breasted sunbird is found in the fynbos vegetation zone of southwestern South Africa. The glacier bear is found only in limited places in Southeast Alaska, political factors can play a part if a species is protected, or actively hunted, in one jurisdiction but not another. There are two subcategories of endemism, paleoendemism and neoendemism, paleoendemism refers to species that were formerly widespread but are now restricted to a smaller area. Neoendemism refers to species that have arisen, such as through divergence and reproductive isolation or through hybridization. Endemics can easily become endangered or extinct if their restricted habitat changes, particularly—but not only—due to human actions, there were millions of both Bermuda petrels and Bermuda cedars in Bermuda when it was settled at the start of the seventeenth century. By the end of the century, the petrels were thought extinct, cedars, already ravaged by centuries of shipbuilding, were driven nearly to extinction in the twentieth century by the introduction of a parasite. Bermuda petrels and cedars are now rare, as are species endemic to Bermuda
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Deforestation
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Deforestation, clearance or clearing is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a non-forest use. Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms, ranches, the most concentrated deforestation occurs in tropical rainforests. About 30% of Earths land surface is covered by forests, Deforestation occurs for multiple reasons, trees are cut down to be used for building or sold as fuel, while cleared land is used as pasture for livestock and plantation. The removal of trees without sufficient reforestation has resulted in damage to habitat, biodiversity loss and it has adverse impacts on biosequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Deforestation has also used in war to deprive the enemy of cover for its forces. Modern examples of this were the use of Agent Orange by the British military in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency, as of 2005, net deforestation rates have ceased to increase in countries with a per capita GDP of at least US$4,600. Deforested regions typically incur significant adverse soil erosion and frequently degrade into wasteland, disregard of ascribed value, lax forest management and deficient environmental laws are some of the factors that allow deforestation to occur on a large scale. In many countries, deforestation, both naturally occurring and human-induced, is an ongoing issue, Deforestation causes extinction, changes to climatic conditions, desertification, and displacement of populations as observed by current conditions and in the past through the fossil record. More than half of all plant and land animal species in the live in tropical forests. Between 2000 and 2012,2.3 million square kilometres of forests around the world were cut down, as a result of deforestation, only 6.2 million square kilometres remain of the original 16 million square kilometres of forest that formerly covered the Earth. According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat, subsistence farming is responsible for 48% of deforestation, commercial agriculture is responsible for 32%, logging is responsible for 14%, and fuel wood removals make up 5%. Experts do not agree on whether industrial logging is an important contributor to global deforestation, some argue that poor people are more likely to clear forest because they have no alternatives, others that the poor lack the ability to pay for the materials and labour needed to clear forest. One study found that population increases due to fertility rates were a primary driver of tropical deforestation in only 8% of cases. Other causes of contemporary deforestation may include corruption of government institutions, the distribution of wealth and power, population growth and overpopulation. Globalization is often viewed as another cause of deforestation, though there are cases in which the impacts of globalization have promoted localized forest recovery. The degradation of forest ecosystems has also traced to economic incentives that make forest conversion appear more profitable than forest conservation. Some commentators have noted a shift in the drivers of deforestation over the past 30 years, Deforestation is ongoing and is shaping climate and geography. Deforestation is a contributor to global warming, and is cited as one of the major causes of the enhanced greenhouse effect
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Sclerophyll
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Sclerophyll is a type of vegetation that has hard leaves, short internodes and leaf orientation parallel or oblique to direct sunlight. The word comes from the Greek sklēros and phyllon, sclerophyllous plants occur in many parts of the world, but are most typical in the chaparral biomes. The term was coined by A. F. W, schimper in 1898, originally as a synonym of xeromorph, but later was changed. Most areas of the Australian continent able to support woody plants are occupied by sclerophyll communities as forests, common plants include the Proteaceae, tea-trees, acacias, boronias, and eucalypts. The most common sclerophyll communities in Australia are savannas dominated by grasses with an overstorey of eucalypts, acacia shrublands also cover extensive areas. These traits make the majority of plants in these woodlands largely unpalatable to domestic livestock. It is therefore important from a perspective that these woodlands support a more or less continuous layer of herbaceous ground cover dominated by grasses. Sclerophyll forests cover a smaller area of the continent, being restricted to relatively high rainfall locations. They have a eucalyptus overstory with the understory also being hard-leaved, dry sclerophyll forests are the most common forest type on the continent, and although it may seem barren dry sclerophyll forest is highly diverse. For example, a study of vegetation in Seal Creek, Victoria. Even less extensive are wet sclerophyll forests and they have a taller eucalyptus overstory than dry sclerophyll forests,30 metres or more, and a soft-leaved, fairly dense understory. They require ample rainfall — at least 1000mm, sclerophyllous plants are all part of a specific environment and are anything but newcomers. By the time of European settlement, sclerophyll forest accounted for the vast bulk of the forested areas, most of the wooded parts of present-day Australia have become sclerophyll dominated as a result of the extreme age of the continent combined with Aboriginal fire use. Deep weathering of the crust over millions of years leached chemicals out of the rock, leaving Australian soils deficient in nutrients. Such nutrient deficient soils support non-sclerophyllous plant communities elsewhere in the world, however such deficient soils cannot support the nutrient losses associated with frequent fires and are rapidly replaced with sclerophyllous species under traditional Aboriginal burning regimens. With the cessation of traditional burning non-sclerophyllous species have re-colonised sclerophyll habitat in parts of Australia. Sclerophyllous plants generally resist dry conditions well, making them successful in areas of seasonally variable rainfall, the leaves are hard due to lignin, which prevents wilting and allows plants to grow, even when there isnt enough phosphorus for substantial new cell growth
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Chaparral
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Chaparral is a shrubland or heathland plant community found primarily in the U. S. state of California and in the northern portion of the Baja California Peninsula, Mexico. Chaparral covers 5 percent of the state of California, and associated Mediterranean shrubland an additional 3.5 percent, the name comes from the Spanish word for scrub oak, chaparro. In its natural state, chaparral is characterized by infrequent fires, mature chaparral is characterized by nearly impenetrable, dense thickets. They grow as woody shrubs with hard and small leaves, are non-leaf-dropping, after the first rains following a fire, the landscape is dominated by soft-leaved non-woody annual plants, known as fire followers, which die back with the summer dry period. According to the California Academy of Sciences, Mediterranean shrubland contains more than 20 percent of the plant diversity. The word chaparral is a word from Spanish chaparro, meaning both small and dwarf evergreen oak, which itself comes from the Basque word txapar, with exactly the same meaning. In Central and Southern California chaparral forms a dominant habitat, the following is a short list of birds which are an integral part of the cismontane chaparral ecosystems. Transmontane chaparral features xeric desert climate, not Mediterranean climate habitats, Desert chaparral is a regional ecosystem subset of the deserts and xeric shrublands biome, with some plant species from the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion. Unlike cismontane chaparral, which forms dense, impenetrable stands of plants, desert chaparral is open, individual shrubs can reach up to 10 feet in height. Transmontane chaparral or desert chaparral is found on the slopes of major mountain range systems on the western sides of the deserts of California. It is distinguished from the cismontane chaparral found on the side of the mountains. Naturally, desert chaparral experiences less rainfall than cismontane chaparral. Plants in this community are characterized by small, hard evergreen leaves, Desert chaparral grows above Californias desert cactus scrub plant community and below the pinyon-juniper woodland. It is further distinguished from the deciduous sub-alpine scrub above the pinyon-juniper woodlands on the side of the Peninsular ranges. Transmontane chaparral typically grows on the northern slopes of the southern Transverse Ranges. It can also be found in higher-elevation sky islands in the interior of the deserts, there is overlap of animals with those of the adjacent desert and pinyon-juniper communities. Canis latrans, coyotes Lynx rufus, bobcats Neotoma sp, the Chaparral area receives about 38–100 cm of precipitation a year. This makes the chaparral most vulnerable to fire in the late summer, the chaparral ecosystem as a whole is adapted to be able to recover from infrequent wildfires, indeed, chaparral regions are known culturally and historically for their impressive fires
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Matorral
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Matorral is a Spanish word, along with tomillares, for shrubland, thicket or bushes. It is used in naming and describing a Mediterranean climate ecosystem in Southern Europe and these scrub shrublands and woodlands are a plant community and a distinct habitat. Now the term is used broadly to include similar bio-assemblages where ever they occur. In Portugal, the term mato or matagal is used to refer to the scrublands, or heaths, Mediterranean Matorral shrublands are often part of a mosaic landscape, interspersed with forests, woodlands, grassland, and scrublands. The term matorral followed Spanish colonization of the Americas, and is used to refer to both Mediterranean woodlands and scrub, and xeric shrublands ecosystems in Mexico, Chile, and elsewhere, there are Chilean Matorral areas in central Chile, including portions of La Campana National Park
Media related to Palearctic at Wikimedia Commons