The Southeast Australia temperate forests is a

temperate broadleaf and mixed forests Temperate broadleaf and mixed forest is a temperate climate terrestrial habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature, with broadleaf tree ecoregions, and with conifer and broadleaf tree mixed coniferous forest ecoregions. These ...

ecoregion of south-eastern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. It includes the temperate lowland forests of southeastern Australia, at the southern end of the

Great Dividing Range The Great Dividing Range, also known as the East Australian Cordillera or the Eastern Highlands, is a cordillera system in eastern Australia consisting of an expansive collection of mountain ranges, plateaus and rolling hills. It runs roughl ...

. Vegetation ranges from wet forests along the coast to dry forests and woodlands inland.

Geography

The ecoregion covers most of the state of

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

, and extends into southeastern New South Wales. It includes the coastal plain and the drier western slope of the Great Dividing Range. It surrounds the Australian Alps montane grasslands, which lie above 1200 in the highest portion of the Great Dividing Range. The northern portion of the ecoregion, lying north of the Great Dividing Range and the

Grampians The Grampian Mountains () is one of the three major mountain ranges in Scotland, that together occupy about half of Scotland. The other two ranges are the Northwest Highlands and the Southern Uplands. The Grampian range extends northeast to so ...

, is in the basin of the

Murray River The Murray River (in South Australia: River Murray; Ngarrindjeri language, Ngarrindjeri: ''Millewa'', Yorta Yorta language, Yorta Yorta: ''Dhungala'' or ''Tongala'') is a river in Southeastern Australia. It is List of rivers of Australia, Aust ...

. The southern portion of the ecoregion, south and east of the Grampians and Great Dividing Range, is drained by the Yarra, Macalister, Thompson, Snowy, and other rivers which empty into the

Bass Strait Bass Strait () is a strait separating the island state of Tasmania from the Mainland Australia, Australian mainland (more specifically the coast of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, with the exception of the land border across Boundary Islet). The ...

Tasman Sea The Tasman Sea is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand. It measures about across and about from north to south. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman, who in 1642 wa ...

. It borders the

Eastern Australian temperate forests The Eastern Australian temperate forests, or the Eastern Australian temperate and subtropical forests, is a broad ecoregion of open forest on uplands (typically on the Great Dividing Range) starting from the east coast of New South Wales in th ...

to the northeast. The Southeast Australia temperate savanna lies to the north, the Murray-Darling woodlands and mallee lies to the northwest, and the

Naracoorte woodlands The Naracoorte woodlands is an ecoregion in southern Australia. It covers the Naracoorte coastal plain in southeastern South Australia and southwestern Victoria. It is coterminous with the Naracoorte Coastal Plain IBRA region. Only 10% of the ...

lies to the west. The ecoregion encompasses six IBRA bioregions – the New South Wales South Western Slopes,

South East Coastal Plain The South East Coastal Plain is an interim Australian bioregion located in coastal southern Victoria. It has an area of . The South East Coastal Plain bioregion is part of the Southeast Australia temperate forests The Southeast Australia te ...

, South East Corner,

South Eastern Highlands The South Eastern Highlands is an interim Australian bioregion in eastern Australia, that spans parts of the states and territories of New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, and Victoria. The bioregion comprises and is approx ...

, Southern Volcanic Plain, and Victorian Midlands.

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

, Australia's second-largest city, is the largest city in the ecoregion.

Flora

Plant communities in the ecoregion include wet

sclerophyll Sclerophyll is a type of vegetation that is adapted to long periods of dryness and heat. The plants feature hard leaves, short Internode (botany), internodes (the distance between leaves along the stem) and leaf orientation which is parallel or ...

forests, dry sclerophyll forests, eucalypt woodlands, temperate rainforest, grasslands, dense heath, coastal vegetation, and

riparian A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. In some regions, the terms riparian woodland, riparian forest, riparian buffer zone, riparian corridor, and riparian strip are used to characterize a ripar ...

communities. Wet sclerophyll forests are common between the coast and the

, which separates these more humid forests from the drier forests and woodlands of the interior. Trees are generally of medium height, with an understory of low shrubs.

Eucalypt Eucalypt is any woody plant with Capsule (fruit), capsule fruiting bodies belonging to one of seven closely related genera (of the tribe Eucalypteae) found across Australia: ''Eucalyptus'', ''Corymbia'', ''Angophora'', ''Stockwellia'', ''Allosyn ...

s are the predominant trees, and characteristic species include brown stringybark (''Eucalyptus baxteri''), manna gum (''E. viminalis''), messmate stringybark (''E. obliqua''), and mountain grey gum (''E. cypellocarpa''). Brown stringybark is found on low-fertility soils, and messmate stringybark becomes common on more fertile soils. Box-ironbark forest is found in the low hills between the Great Dividing Range and the drier woodlands of the interior plains. The predominant trees are grey box (''Eucalyptus microcarpa''), yellow gum (''E. leucoxylon''), and red ironbark (''E. sideroxylon''). Eucalypt woodland is found in the drier interior. It is an open woodland of medium-sized trees, with 10 to 30 percent tree canopy cover. Common trees include grey box, yellow box (''Eucalyptus melliodora''), and Blakely's red gum (''E. blakeleyi''). The understorey is dominated by grasses such as ''

Themeda triandra } ''Themeda triandra'' is a species of perennial tussock-forming grass widespread in Africa, Australia, Asia and the Pacific. In Australia it is commonly known as kangaroo grass and in East Africa and South Africa it is known as red grass and ...

'' with few shrubs. In the Geelong area and on the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales there are treeless basalt plains dominated by spear grasses ('' Stipa scabra'' and '' S. bigeniculata'').

Fauna

Native mammals include the

koala The koala (''Phascolarctos cinereus''), sometimes inaccurately called the koala bear, is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia. It is the only Extant taxon, extant representative of the Family (biology), family ''Phascolar ...

(''Phascolarctos cinereus''), southern subspecies of

tiger quoll The tiger quoll (''Dasyurus maculatus''), also known as the spotted-tailed quoll, spotted quoll, spotted-tailed dasyure, or tiger cat, is a carnivorous marsupial of the quoll genus ''quoll, Dasyurus'' native to Australia. With males and female ...

(''Dasyurus maculatus maculatus''), long-nosed potoroo (''Potorous tridactylus''),

feathertail glider The feathertail glider (''Acrobates pygmaeus''), also known as the pygmy gliding possum, pygmy glider, pygmy phalanger, flying phalanger and flying mouse, is a species of marsupial native to eastern Australia. It is the world's smallest gliding ...

(''Acrobates pygmaeus''), and

eastern pygmy possum The eastern pygmy possum (''Cercartetus nanus'') is a diprotodont marsupial of south-eastern Australia. Occurring from southern Queensland to eastern South Australia and also Tasmania, it is found in a range of habitats, including rainforest, ...

(''Cercartetus nanus''). The mainland swamp antechinus (''Antechinus minimus maritimus'') and white footed dunnart (''Sminthopsis leucopus'') are restricted to the coastal region. The

smoky mouse The smoky mouse (''Pseudomys fumeus'') is a species of rodent in the family Muridae native to southeastern Australia. It was first described in 1934 and its species name is Latin for "smoky". As its name suggests, it is a grey-furred mouse, darker ...

(''Pseudomys fumeus'') and agile antechinus (''Antechinus agilis'') are near-endemic. Leadbeater’s possum (''Gymnobelideus leadbeateri'') is endemic to the ecoregion, restricted to wet eucalypt forests of the Victorian Central Highlands.

Protected areas

12.6% of the ecoregion is in protected areas. Protected areas include Croajingolong National Park,

Snowy River National Park The Snowy River National Park is a national park located in the Alpine and East Gippsland regions of Victoria, Australia. The national park is situated approximately northeast of Melbourne and southwest of Canberra, south of the Black-Allan ...

Wadbilliga National Park Wadbilliga National Park is a Protected areas of Australia, national park that is in high country spanning the Monaro (New South Wales), Monaro and South Coast (New South Wales), South Coast regions of south-eastern New South Wales, Australia. ...

, and

Murramarang National Park Murramarang is a national park in New South Wales, Australia, southwest of Sydney. It follows the coastline from Long Beach north to Merry Beach near Ulladulla. It is surrounded by three state forests, Kioloa, South Brooman, and Benandarrah. ...

in the South East Corner,

Grampians National Park The Grampians National Park, commonly known as the Grampians, is a national park located in the Grampians region of Victoria, Australia. The Jardwadjali name for the mountain range itself is Gariwerd. The national park is situated between ...

in the Victorian Midlands,

Great Otway National Park The Great Otway National Park is a national park located in the Barwon South West region of Victoria, Australia. The national park is situated approximately southwest of Melbourne, in the Otway Ranges, a low coastal mountain range. It conta ...

in the coastal Otway Ranges southwest of Melbourne, and

Mount Imlay National Park Mount Imlay is a national park in New South Wales (Australia), 387 km south of Sydney, named after George Imlay, the Imlay brothers, who were early pioneers to the district. It is accessed from the Princes Highway, south of Eden, New South ...

External links

References

{{Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA), state=collapsed Biogeography of New South Wales Biogeography of Victoria (state) Ecoregions of Australia Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests Sclerophyll forests