The Zambezian region is a large
biogeographical region in Africa. The Zambezian region includes woodlands, savannas, grasslands, and thickets, extending from east to west in a broad belt across the continent. The Zambezian region lies south of the rainforests of the
Guineo-Congolian region
The Guineo-Congolian region is a biogeographical region in Africa straddling the Equator and stretching from the Atlantic Ocean through the Congo Basin to the Congo / Nile divide in Rwanda and Burundi. Formerly, this region was largely covered in ...
. The Zambezian region is bounded by deserts and xeric shrublands on the southwest, the
Highveld
The Highveld (Afrikaans: ''Hoëveld,'' , ) is the portion of the South African inland plateau which has an altitude above roughly , but below , thus excluding the Lesotho mountain regions to the south-east of the Highveld. It is home to some of t ...
grasslands of South Africa to the south, and the subtropical
Maputaland forests on the southeast.
Vegetation types
The dominant vegetation types in the Zambezian region include:
[Emmanuel N. Chidumayo and Davison J. Gumbo, eds. (2010). ''The dry forests and woodlands of Africa: managing for products and services''. Earthscan, 2010.]
* Dry deciduous forest and scrub forest
* Zambezian wooded grassland
* Itigi deciduous thicket
*
Miombo
Miombo woodland is a tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome (in the World Wide Fund for Nature scheme) located in central and southern tropical Africa. It includes three woodland savanna ecoregions (listed below) chara ...
woodland
*
Mopane
''Colophospermum mopane'', commonly called mopane, mopani, butterfly tree, turpentine tree, or balsam tree, is a tree in the legume family (Fabaceae), that grows in hot, dry, low-lying areas, in elevation, in parts of Southern Africa. The tree ...
woodland
* Undifferentiated woodland
*
Zambezian flooded grasslands and savannas
*
Zambezian halophytics
Biodiversity
Botanist
Frank White estimated that the region has 8,500 species of plants, of which 4,590, or 54%, are
endemic
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 foun ...
. Trees from subfamily
Detarioideae
The subfamily Detarioideae is one of the subdivisions of the plant family Fabaceae (legumes). This subfamily includes many tropical trees, some of which are used for timber or have ecological importance. The subfamily consists of 84 genera, mos ...
of the legume family (
Fabaceae
Fabaceae () or Leguminosae,[International Code of Nomen ...](_blank)
) are predominant in the region's woodland plant communities, including species of ''
Brachystegia
''Brachystegia'' is a genus of tree of the subfamily Detarioideae that is native to tropical Africa.
Trees of the genus are commonly known as miombo, and are dominant in the miombo woodlands of central and southern tropical Africa. The Zambezia ...
'', ''
Julbernardia'', and ''
Isoberlinia'' in miombo woodlands, ''
Baikiaea'' in Baikiaea woodlands, and mopane (''
Colophospermum mopane'') in mopane woodlands.
[Ribeiro, N.S., Silva de Miranda, P., Timberlake, J. (2020). Biogeography and Ecology of Miombo Woodlands. In: Ribeiro, N.S., Katerere, Y., Chirwa, P.W., Grundy, I.M. (eds) ''Miombo Woodlands in a Changing Environment: Securing the Resilience and Sustainability of People and Woodlands''. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50104-4_2]
The region is a centre of diversity for tree species in the genera ''Brachystegia'' (21 species) and ''
Monotes'' (11 species).
[ The Zambezian Region is a centre of diversity for " underground trees" (geoxylic suffrutices) which grow most of their stems and branches underground. 86 of 98 African species of underground trees identified by Frank White are native to the Zambezian Region.][
]
Ecoregions
According to the World Wildlife Fund
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is a Swiss-based international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the ...
, the Zambezian region includes over a dozen ecoregion
An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecological and geographic area that exists on multiple different levels, defined by type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and c ...
s.[Burgess, Neil, Jennifer D'Amico Hales, Emma Underwood, et al. (2004). ''Terrestrial Ecoregions of Africa and Madagascar: A Conservation Assessment''. World Wildlife Fund. Island Press, 2004]
* Angolan miombo woodlands (Angola)
* Angolan mopane woodlands
Angolan mopane woodlands are situated in southwestern Angola, extending into northern Namibia. This ecosystem surrounds Etosha Pan, which is considered a separate ecoregion. The mopane trees are the main type of vegetation.
Location and descript ...
(Angola, Namibia)
* Bushveld
The Bushveld (from Afrikaans: ''bosveld'', Afrikaans: ''bos'' 'bush' and ) is a Tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands, sub-tropical woodland ecoregion of Southern Africa. The ecoregion straddles the Tropic of Capricorn ...
(South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe)
* Central Zambezian miombo woodlands (Angola, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia)
* Eastern miombo woodlands (Mozambique, Tanzania)
* Etosha Pan halophytics (Namibia)
* Itigi-Sumbu thicket (Tanzania, Zambia)
* Southern miombo woodlands
The Southern miombo woodlands is a tropical grasslands and woodlands ecoregion extending across portions of Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
It is one of four miombo woodlands ecoregions that span the African continent south of the Co ...
(Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe)
* Western Zambezian grasslands (Angola, Zambia)
* Zambezian Baikiaea woodlands (Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe)
* Zambezian Cryptosepalum dry forests (Angola, Zambia)
* Zambezian coastal flooded savanna (Mozambique)
* Zambezian flooded grasslands (Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia)
* Zambezian halophytics (Botswana, Mozambique)
* Zambezian and mopane woodlands (Botswana, Eswatini, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe)
See also
* Flora Zambesiaca
References
{{reflist
Afrotropical realm
Floristic regions