Citizendia
Your Ad Here

This article is about an ecoregion; for other uses, see Southwest, Western Australia.

Southwest Australia is a biodiversity hotspot that includes the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and shrub ecoregions of Western Australia. A biodiversity hotspot is a Biogeographic region with a significant reservoir of biodiversity that is threatened with destruction Mediterranean forests woodlands and shrub is a temperate Biome, characterized by hot dry summers and mild and rainy winters An ecoregion ( ecological region) sometimes called a bioregion, is an ecologically and geographically defined area smaller than a "realm" or " Western Australia is a state occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. The region has a wet-winter, dry-summer Mediterranean climate, one of five such regions in the world. A Mediterranean climate is one that resembles the Climate of the lands in the Mediterranean Basin, which includes over half of the area with this climate type world-wide The region covers 356,717 km², consisting of a broad coastal plain 20-120 kilometers wide, transitioning to gently undulating uplands made up of weathered granite, gneiss and laterite. Granite (ˈɡrænɪt is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, Felsic, igneous rock. Gneiss (ˈnaɪs is a common and widely distributed type of rock formed by high-grade regional metamorphic processes from preexisting formations that were originally Laterite (from the Latin word "later" meaning brick or tile is a surface formation in hot and wet tropical areas which is enriched in Iron and Aluminium Desert and xeric shrublands lie to the north and east across the center of Australia, separating Southwest Australia from the other Mediterranean and humid-climate regions of the continent.

The vegetation in the region is mainly woody, including forests, woodlands, shrublands, and heathlands, but no grasslands. A forest is an area with a high density of Trees There are many definitions of a forest based on various criteria Ecologically a woodland is an area covered in trees differentiated from a Forest. Shrubland (synonymous with Scrubland) is a habitat type dominated by woody Shrubs A shrub is a perennial woody plant that branches at ground level to form several Heaths are Shrubland habitats characterised by open low growing woody Vegetation, found on mainly infertile Acidic soils Grasslands (also called greenswards) are areas where the Vegetation is dominated by Grasses ( Poaceae) and other Herbaceous (non-woody Predominant vegetation types are Eucalyptus woodlands, eucalyptus-dominated Mallee shrublands, and kwongan shrublands and heathlands, which correspond to the chaparral, matorral, maquis, and fynbos shrublands found in other Mediterranean-type regions. Eucalyptus (From Greek ευκάλυπτος meaning "well covered" is a diverse Genus of Trees (and a few shrubs the members of which The Kwongan heathlands form an Ecoregion confined to south-western Australia. Chaparral is a Shrubland or heathland Plant community found primarily in the U Matorral is a Spanish word for Shrubland, Thicket or Bushes. Matorral originally referred to the Matorral shrublands of Maquis ( French) or macchia ( Italian; plural macchie) is a Shrubland Biome in the Mediterranean region, typically Fynbos (ˈfəinbɒs or anglicised as /ˈfeɪnbɒs/ meaning "fine bush" in Afrikaans) is the natural Shrubland or heathland vegetation occurring The region has generally nutrient-poor sandy or lateritic soils, which has encouraged rich speciation of plants adapted to specific ecological niches. Speciation is the Evolutionary process by which new biological Species arise The region hosts a great diversity of endemic species, notably among the protea family (Proteaceae). Endemism is the Ecological state of being unique to a place Endemic species are not naturally found elsewhere Proteaceae is a family of Flowering plants. Mainly restricted to the Southern Hemisphere, it is a fairly large family with around 80 genera

Botanic province

The region corresponds to the Southwest Botanic Province and the floristic province of Southwest Australia. A Phytochorion, in Phytogeography, is a geographic area with a relatively uniform composition of plant species The World Wide Fund for Nature and Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia (IBRA) divide the region up into a number of ecoregions:

External links

Further reading

© 2009 citizendia.org; parts available under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License, from http://en.wikipedia.org
 Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic