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Southwest Australia
Southwest Australia is a biogeographic region in Western Australia. It includes the Mediterranean-climate area of southwestern Australia, which is home to a diverse and distinctive flora and fauna. The region is also known as the Southwest Australia Global Diversity Hotspot. Geography The region includes the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub ecoregions of Western Australia. The region covers 356,717 km2, consisting of a broad coastal plain 20–120 kilometres wide, transitioning to gently undulating uplands made up of weathered granite, gneiss and laterite. Bluff Knoll in the Stirling Range is the highest peak in the region, at 1,099 metres (3,606 ft) elevation. Desert and xeric shrublands lie to the north and east across the centre of Australia, separating Southwest Australia from the other Mediterranean and humid-climate regions of the continent. Climate The region has a wet-winter, dry-summer Mediterranean climate, one of five such regions in the worl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shrubland
Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominance (ecology), dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbaceous plant, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally or be the result of human activity. It may be the mature vegetation type in a particular region and remain stable over time, or it may be a transitional community that occurs temporarily as the result of a disturbance, such as fire. A stable state may be maintained by regular natural disturbance such as fire or browsing (predation), browsing. Shrubland may be unsuitable for human habitation because of the danger of fire. The term was coined in 1903. Shrubland species generally show a wide range of adaptations to fire, such as heavy seed production, lignotubers, and fire-induced germination. Botanical structural form In botany and ecology a shrub is defined as a much-branched woody plant less than 8 m high, usually with many plant stem, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carnivorous Plant
Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods, and occasionally small mammals and birds. They have adapted to grow in waterlogged sunny places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic bogs. They can be found on all continents except Antarctica, as well as many Pacific islands. In 1875, Charles Darwin published '' Insectivorous Plants'', the first treatise to recognize the significance of carnivory in plants, describing years of painstaking research. True carnivory is believed to have evolved independently at least 12 times in five different orders of flowering plants, and is represented by more than a dozen genera. This classification includes at least 583 species that attract, trap, and kill prey, absorbing the resulting available nutrients. Venus flytraps (''Dionaea muscipula''), pitcher plants, and bladderworts ('' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proteaceae
The Proteaceae form a family (biology), family of flowering plants predominantly distributed in the Southern Hemisphere. The family comprises 83 genus, genera with about 1,660 known species. Australia and South Africa have the greatest concentrations of diversity. Together with the Platanaceae (plane trees), Nelumbonaceae (the sacred lotus) and in the recent APG IV system the Sabiaceae, they make up the order Proteales. Well-known Proteaceae genera include ''Protea'', ''Banksia'', ''Embothrium'', ''Grevillea'', ''Hakea'', and ''Macadamia''. Species such as the New South Wales waratah (''Telopea speciosissima''), king protea (''Protea cynaroides''), and various species of ''Banksia'', ''Grevillea'', and ''Leucadendron'' are popular cut flowers. The nuts of ''Macadamia integrifolia'' are widely grown commercially and consumed, as are those of ''Gevuina avellana'' on a smaller scale. Etymology The name Proteaceae was adapted by Robert Brown (botanist, born 1773), Robert Brown from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endemic (ecology)
Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, the Cape sugarbird is found exclusively in southwestern South Africa and is therefore said to be ''endemic'' to that particular part of the world. An endemic species can also be referred to as an ''endemism'' or, in scientific literature, as an ''endemite''. Similarly, many species found in the Western ghats of India are examples of endemism. Endemism is an important concept in conservation biology for measuring biodiversity in a particular place and evaluating the risk of extinction for species. Endemism is also of interest in evolutionary biology, because it provides clues about how changes in the environment cause species to undergo range shifts (potentially expanding their range into a larger area or bec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Speciation
Speciation is the evolutionary process by which populations evolve to become distinct species. The biologist Orator F. Cook coined the term in 1906 for cladogenesis, the splitting of lineages, as opposed to anagenesis, phyletic evolution within lineages. Charles Darwin was the first to describe the role of natural selection in speciation in his 1859 book ''On the Origin of Species''. He also identified sexual selection as a likely mechanism, but found it problematic. There are four geographic modes of speciation in nature, based on the extent to which speciating populations are isolated from one another: allopatric speciation, allopatric, peripatric speciation, peripatric, parapatric speciation, parapatric, and sympatric speciation, sympatric. Whether genetic drift is a minor or major contributor to speciation is the subject of much ongoing discussion. Rapid sympatric speciation can take place through polyploidy, such as by doubling of chromosome number; the result is progeny wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fynbos
Fynbos (; , ) is a small belt of natural shrubland or heathland vegetation located in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape provinces of South Africa. The area is predominantly coastal and mountainous, with a Mediterranean climate. The fynbos ecoregion is within the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome. In fields related to biogeography, fynbos is known for its exceptional degree of biodiversity and endemism, consisting of about 80% (8,500 fynbos) species of the Cape floral kingdom, where nearly 6,000 of them are endemic. The area continues to face severe human-caused threats, but due to the many economic uses of the fynbos, conservation efforts are being made to help restore it. Origin of the term The word '' fynbos'' is often taken literally to mean ''fine bush'', as in Afrikaans '' bos'' means '' bush'', whereas in this instance ''bush'' refers to the type of vegetation. Typical fynbos foliage is ericoid rather than ''fine''. The term in its pre-Afrikaans, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maquis Shrubland
220px, Low maquis in Corsica 220px, High ''macchia'' in Sardinia ( , , ) or ( , ; often in Italian; , ; ; ; ) is a savanna-like shrubland biome in the Mediterranean region, typically consisting of densely growing evergreen shrubs. Maquis is characterized by plants of the family Lamiaceae, genera '' Laurus'' and '' Myrtus'', and species '' Olea europaea'', '' Ceratonia siliqua'', and '' Ficus carica''. It is similar to garrigue Garrigue or garigue ( ), also known as phrygana ( , n. pl.), is a type of low scrubland ecoregion and plant community in the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome. It is found on limestone soils in southern France and around the .... See also * Mining maquis * Maquis (other) * Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub References External links * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Maquis Shrubland * Ecoregions of Europe Ecoregions of Metropolitan France Environment of the Mediterranean Mediterranean forests, woodlands, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matorral
300px, Springtime in Santiago.html" ;"title="Chilean matorral a few kilometers north of Santiago">Chilean matorral a few kilometers north of Santiago along the Pan-American Highway Matorral is a Spanish language, Spanish word, along with ''tomillares'', for shrubland, thicket, or bushes. It is used in naming and describing a Mediterranean climate ecosystem in Southern Europe. Mediterranean region ''Matorral'' originally referred to the matorral shrublands and woodlands in the Mediterranean climate regions of Spain and other Mediterranean Basin countries. These scrub shrublands and woodlands are a plant community and a distinct habitat. Other common general names for this Mediterranean region shrubland habitat ecosystem are '' maquis'' and ''garrigue'' in France, ''macchia Mediterranea'' in Italy, ''phrygana'' in Greece, ''mato'' Portugal, ''batha'' in Israel. The term is now used more broadly to include similar bio-assemblages wherever they occur. In Portugal, the term ''mato ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chaparral
Chaparral ( ) is a shrubland plant plant community, community found primarily in California, southern Oregon, and northern Baja California. It is shaped by a Mediterranean climate (mild wet winters and hot dry summers) and infrequent, high-intensity crown fires. Many chaparral shrubs have hard sclerophyllous evergreen leaves, as contrasted with the associated soft-leaved, drought-deciduous, scrub community of coastal sage scrub, found often on drier, southern-facing slopes. Three other closely related chaparral shrubland systems occur in southern Arizona, western Texas, and along the eastern side of central Mexico's mountain chains, all having summer rains in contrast to the Mediterranean climate of other chaparral formations. Etymology The name comes from the Spanish language, Spanish word , which translates to "place of the scrub oak". ''Scrub oak'' in turn comes from the Basque language, Basque word , which has the same meaning. Overview In its natural state, chaparral is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kwongan
Kwongan is a plant community found in south-western Western Australia. The name is a Bibulman Aboriginal term of wide geographical use defined by Beard (1976) as Kwongan has replaced other terms applied by European botanists such as sand-heide (Diels 1906) or sand heath (Gardner 1942), giving priority to the language of people who have lived continuously in the southwest for more than 50,000 years. Recent archeological evidence shows occupation of the Kwongan for at least 25,500 years. Thus, kwongan has come again into common usage for the Southwest Australian Floristic Region's shrubland vegetation and associated countryside, equivalent to South Africa's fynbos, California's chaparral, France's maquis and Chile's matorral as seen in these other regions of the world experiencing a Mediterranean climate. Etymology To reflect contemporary orthographies, linguists strictly spell kwongan as (Douglas 1976, Dench 1994), or (von Brandenstein 1988). As with so many other aspect ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mallee Woodlands And Shrublands
Mallee Woodlands and Shrublands is one of 32 List of Major Vegetation Groups in Australia, Major Vegetation Groups defined by the Australian Government Department of the Environment and Energy and one of the 189 habitats in the HOTW habitats of the World classification. Description "Mallee (habit), Mallee" refers to the growth habit of a group of (mainly) eucalypt species that grow to a height of , have many stems arising from a lignotuber and have a leafy canopy that shades 30–70% of the ground. The term is also applied to a vegetation association where these mallee eucalypts grow, on land that is generally flat without hills or tall trees and where the climate is semi-arid. Of the 32 Major Vegetation Groups classified under the National Vegetation Information System, "Mallee Woodlands and Shrublands" (MVG14): * are semi-arid areas dominated by mallee eucalypts; * may also have co-dominant species of ''Callitris'', ''Melaleuca'', ''Acacia'' and ''Hakea''; * have an open tree ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
