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The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone.
The Auckland Islands are an archipelago of New Zealand, lying 465 kilometres (290 mi) south of the South Island. The main Auckland Island, occupying 510 km2 (200 sq mi), is surrounded by smaller Adams Island, Enderby Island, Disappointment Island, Ewing Island, Rose Island, Dundas Island, and Green Island, with a combined area of 626 km2 (240 sq mi). The islands have no permanent human inhabitants.
A biogeographic realm or ecozone is the broadest biogeographic division of Earth's land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial organisms. They are subdivided into bioregions, which are further subdivided into ecoregions.
Miklos Dezso Ferenc Udvardy was a Hungarian biologist and biogeographer. He was born on March 23, 1919, in Debrecen, Hungary to the noblemen Miklos Udvardy de Udvardy et Básth and Elizabeth Komlossy de Komlos. Despite an early interest in birds, his father encouraged him to study law, but later went on to earn a doctorate in biology from the University of Debrecen in 1942. His first position was as research biologist at the Tihanyi Biological Station on Lake Balaton in western Hungary.
The Indomalayan realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms. It extends across most of South and Southeast Asia and into the southern parts of East Asia.
The Australasian realm is a biogeographic realm that is coincident with, but not the same as, the geographical region of Australasia. The realm includes Australia, the island of New Guinea, and the eastern part of the Indonesian archipelago, including the island of Sulawesi, the Moluccan islands, and the islands of Lombok, Sumbawa, Sumba, Flores, and Timor, often known as the Lesser Sundas.
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The biodiversity of New Caledonia is of exceptional biological and paleoecological interest. It is frequently referred to as a biodiversity hotspot. The country is a large South Pacific archipelago with a total land area of more than 18,000 square kilometres (6,900 sq mi). The terrain includes a variety of reefs, atolls, small islands, and a variety of topographical and edaphic regions on the largest island, all of which promote the development of unusually concentrated biodiversity. The region's climate is oceanic and tropical.
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The New Caledonia rain forests are a terrestrial ecoregion, located in New Caledonia in the South Pacific. It is a tropical moist broadleaf forest ecoregion, part of the Australasian realm.
The Antipodes Subantarctic Islands tundra ecoregion, within the tundra biome, includes five remote island groups in the Pacific Ocean south of New Zealand: the Bounty Islands, Auckland Islands, Antipodes Islands and Campbell Island groups of New Zealand, and Macquarie Island of Australia.
The biodiversity of New Zealand, a large island country located in the south-western Pacific Ocean, is varied and distinctive. The species of New Zealand accumulated over many millions of years as lineages evolved in the local circumstances. New Zealand's pre-human biodiversity exhibited high levels of species endemism, but has experienced episodes of biological turnover. Global extinction approximately 65 Ma resulted in the loss of fauna such as non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs and marine reptiles e.g. mosasaurs, elasmosaurs and plesiosaurs. The ancient fauna is not well known, but at least one species of terrestrial mammal existed in New Zealand around 19 Ma. For at least several million years before the arrival of human and commensal species, the islands had no terrestrial mammals except for bats and seals, the main component of the terrestrial fauna being insects and birds. Recently—since c. 1300 CE—a component has been introduced by humans, including many terrestrial mammals.
The Campbell Plateau is a large oceanic plateau south of New Zealand and the Chatham Rise. It originated in the Gondwanan breakup and is part of Zealandia, a largely submerged continent. The above sea level parts of the plateau — the Bounty Islands, Antipodes Islands, Auckland Islands and Campbell Island — form part of the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands which were declared a World Heritage Site in 1998. Large parts of the Campbell Plateau lie less than 1000 m below sea level. It rises to 500 m at the Pukaki Rise and emerges above sea level at the Auckland and Campbell Islands.
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Insulantarctica is a biogeographic province of the Antarctic Realm according to the classification developed by Miklos Udvardy in 1975. It comprises scattered islands of the Southern Ocean, which show clear affinity to each other. These islands belong to different countries. Some of them constitute UNESCO's protected areas.
The Antarctic Floristic Kingdom, also the Holantarctic Kingdom, is a floristic kingdom that includes most areas of the world south of 40°S latitude. It was first identified by botanist Ronald Good, and later by Armen Takhtajan. The Antarctic Floristic Kingdom is a classification in phytogeography, different from the Antarctic realm classification in biogeography, and from Antarctic flora genera/species classifications in botany.
The natural history of New Zealand began when the landmass Zealandia broke away from the supercontinent Gondwana in the Cretaceous period. Before this time, Zealandia shared its past with Australia and Antarctica. Since this separation, the New Zealand biota and landscape has evolved in near-isolation. The exclusively natural history of the country ended in about 1300 AD, when humans first settled, and the country's environmental history began. The period from 1300 AD to today coincides with the extinction of many of New Zealand's unique species that had evolved there.
Zealandia, also known as Te Riu-a-Māui (Māori) or Tasmantis, is an almost entirely submerged mass of continental crust that subsided after breaking away from Gondwanaland 83–79 million years ago. It has been described variously as a submerged continent, a continental fragment, and a continent. The name and concept for Zealandia was proposed by Bruce Luyendyk in 1995, and satellite imagery shows it to be almost the size of Australia. A 2021 study suggests Zealandia is 1 billion years old, about twice as old as geologists previously thought.
Biogeographic classification of India is the division of India according to biogeographic characteristics. Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species (biology), organisms, and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time. India has a rich heritage of natural diversity. India ranks fourth in Asia and tenth in the world amongst the top 17 mega-diverse countries in the world. India harbours nearly 11% of the world's floral diversity comprising over 17500 documented flowering plants, 6200 endemic species, 7500 medicinal plants and 246 globally threatened species in only 2.4% of world's land area. India is also home to four biodiversity hotspots—Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Eastern Himalaya, Indo-Burma region, and the Western Ghats. Hence the importance of biogeographical study of India's natural heritage.
References
- ↑ Udvardy, M. D. F. (1975). A Classification of the Biogeographical Provinces of the World. Morges, Switzerland: IUCN.
- ↑ Udvardy, Miklos D. F. (1975). World Biogeographical Provinces (Map). Sausalito, California: CoEvolution.
- ↑ Nature: Land of the Kiwi, PBS Video, 1987