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26-556: The Cape Floral Region is a floristic region located near the southern tip of South Africa . It is the only floristic region of the Cape Floristic Kingdom , and includes only one floristic province , known as the Cape Floristic Province . The Cape Floristic Region, the smallest of the six recognised floral kingdoms of the world, is an area of extraordinarily high diversity and endemism , and

52-740: A different phylogenetic trajectory. The merging of the Cape floristic kingdom with the African realm was based by the low endemism of higher taxonomic ranks, which could be found outside the cape region in the rest of Africa. The final major change is the separation of the Saharo-Arabian realm from the Holarctic kingdom, though they admit the northern boundary is not clear, with flora from the Holarctic being found within this area. After publishing their regions, Dr. Hong Qian criticized Liu et al. for

78-569: A large number of endemic taxa . Floristic kingdoms are characterized by a high degree of family endemism, floristic regions by a high degree of generic endemism, and floristic provinces by a high degree of species endemism. Systems of phytochoria have both significant similarities and differences with zoogeographic provinces , which follow the composition of mammal families , and with biogeographical provinces or terrestrial ecoregions , which take into account both plant and animal species. The term "phytochorion" (Werger & van Gils, 1976)

104-493: A non hierarchical sense) or "phytochoria". Systems used to classify vegetation can be divided in two major groups: those that use physiognomic-environmental parameters and characteristics and those that are based on floristic (i.e. shared genera and species) relationships. Phytochoria are defined by their plant taxonomic composition, while other schemes of regionalization (e.g., vegetation type , physiognomy , plant formations, biomes ) may variably take in account, depending on

130-521: A result of rapid deforestation. Other areas include the Tropical Andes, Philippines, Mesoamerica, and Sundaland, which, under the current levels at which deforestation is occurring, will likely lose most of their plant and vertebrate species. Only a small percentage of the total land area within biodiversity hotspots is now protected. Several international organizations are working to conserve biodiversity hotspots. Most biodiversity exists within

156-413: A widely used scheme that builds on Good's work, identified thirty-five floristic regions, each of which is subdivided into floristic provinces, of which there are 152 in all. Critiquing previous attempts for their lack of phylogenetic relationships in the construction of their regions, Liu et al. incorporated distribution data alongside phylogenetic relationships to configure their realms. This led to

182-568: Is especially associated with the classifications according to the methodology of Josias Braun-Blanquet , which is tied to the presence or absence of particular species, mainly in Africa. Taxonomic databases tend to be organized in ways which approximate floristic provinces, but which are more closely aligned to political boundaries, for example according to the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions . In

208-407: Is home to over 9,000 vascular plant species, of which 69 percent are endemic. Much of this diversity is associated with the fynbos biome, a Mediterranean-type, fire-prone shrubland. The economical worth of fynbos biodiversity, based on harvests of fynbos products (e.g. wildflowers ) and eco-tourism , is estimated to be in the region of R 77 million (~ US$ 5 million) a year. Thus, it is clear that

234-529: Is located entirely within the borders of South Africa. It is one of the five temperate Mediterranean-type systems on the hotspots list, and is one of only two hotspots that encompass an entire floral kingdom (the other being New Caledonia ). The Region covers the Mediterranean climate region of South Africa in the Western Cape in the southwestern corner of the country, and extends eastward into

260-682: Is produced out of this region. List of vegetation types of the Cape Floristic Region: The World Wide Fund for Nature divides the Cape floristic region into three ecoregions : the Lowland fynbos and renosterveld , Montane fynbos and renosterveld and the Albany thickets . The fynbos ecoregions are designated one of the Global 200 priority ecoregions for conservation. Conservation International declared

286-510: Is threatened by human habitation. Norman Myers wrote about the concept in two articles in The Environmentalist in 1988 and 1990, after which the concept was revised following thorough analysis by Myers and others into "Hotspots: Earth's Biologically Richest and Most Endangered Terrestrial Ecoregions" and a paper published in the journal Nature , both in 2000. To qualify as a biodiversity hotspot on Myers' 2000 edition of

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312-534: The Eastern Cape , a transitional zone between the winter rainfall region to the west and the summer-rainfall region to the east in KwaZulu-Natal . Most of the region is covered with fynbos , a sclerophyllous shrubland occurring on acid sands or nutrient-poor soils derived from Table Mountain sandstones (Cape Supergroup). Fynbos is home to a diverse plethora of plant species including many members of

338-476: The Cape Floristic Region has both economic and intrinsic biological value as a biodiversity hotspot . Home to the greatest non-tropical concentration of higher plant species in the world, the region is the only hotspot that encompasses an entire floral kingdom, and holds five of South Africa's 12 endemic plant families and 160 endemic genera. Covering 78,555 km, Cape Floristic Region hotspot

364-446: The Cape floristic region to be a biodiversity hotspot . It is thought that the Cape Floristic Region is experiencing one of the most rapid rates of extinction in the world due to habitat loss , land degradation , and invasive alien plants . In 2004, the "Cape Floral Region Protected Areas" were inscribed as a World Heritage Site . The site includes eight representative protected areas: This article incorporates CC BY-3.0 text from

390-502: The author, the apparent characteristics of a community (the dominant life-form ), environment characteristics , the fauna associated, anthropic factors or political - conservationist issues. Several systems of classifying geographic areas where plants grow have been devised. Most systems are organized hierarchically, with the largest units subdivided into smaller geographic areas, which are made up of smaller floristic communities, and so on. Phytochoria are defined as areas possessing

416-407: The base-rich shaley soils of the coastal forelands. Small pockets of Afromontane forest ( Southern Afrotemperate Forest ) can be found in humid and sheltered areas. According to Takhtajan (1978), the following families are endemic or subendemic to the region: Grubbiaceae , Roridulaceae , Bruniaceae , Penaeaceae , Greyiaceae , Geissolomataceae , Retziaceae ( Retzia ) and Stilbaceae . Rooibos

442-547: The classification of eight realms organized into two super-realms and each composed of a number of sub-realms. Differences from Takhtajan's floristic kingdoms mainly focus on emphasizing the uniqueness of certain realms that he had as subdivisions within kingdoms. Two examples are separating some kingdoms into two separate realms, as happened to the Paleotropical and Antarctic kingdoms, reasoning that they have been separated form each other for long enough time to constitute

468-627: The hotspot map, a region must meet two strict criteria: it must contain at least 1,500 species of vascular plants (more than 0.5% of the world's total) as endemics , and it has to have lost at least 70% of its primary vegetation. Globally, 36 zones qualify under this definition. These sites support nearly 60% of the world's plant, bird, mammal, reptile, and amphibian species , with a high share of those species as endemics. Some of these hotspots support up to 15,000 endemic plant species, and some have lost up to 95% of their natural habitat. Biodiversity hotspots host their diverse ecosystems on just 2.4% of

494-470: The inclusion of nonnative distributions in their analyses. In response to this, the group cleaned their data to remove nonnative ranges and reassessed their regions. They suggest that the previous inclusion of exotic species did not significantly affect their mapping and found that the cleaned data revealed the same floristic realms. Biodiversity hotspot A biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographic region with significant levels of biodiversity that

520-660: The infertile ground has previously dissuaded human populations. The conservation of OCBILs within biodiversity hotspots has started to garner attention because current theories believe these sites provide not only high levels of biodiversity, but they have relatively stable lineages and the potential for high levels of speciation in the future. Because these sites are relatively stable, they can be classified as refugia . North and Central America The Caribbean South America Europe Africa Central Asia South Asia Southeast Asia and Asia-Pacific East Asia West Asia The high profile of

546-476: The largest natural units he determined for flowering plants. Good's six kingdoms are subdivided into smaller units, called regions and provinces. The Paleotropical kingdom is divided into three subkingdoms, which are each subdivided into floristic regions. Each of the other five kingdoms are subdivided directly into regions. There are a total of 37 floristic regions. Almost all regions are further subdivided into floristic provinces. Armen Takhtajan (1978, 1986), in

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572-678: The late 19th century, Adolf Engler (1844-1930) was the first to make a world map with the limits of distribution of floras, with four major floral regions (realms). His Syllabus der Pflanzenfamilien , from the third edition (1903) onwards, also included a sketch of the division of the earth into floral regions. Other important early works on floristics includes Augustin de Candolle (1820), Schouw (1823), Alphonse de Candolle (1855), Drude (1890), Diels (1908), and Rikli (1913). Botanist Ronald Good (1947) identified six floristic kingdoms ( Boreal or Holarctic, Neotropical , Paleotropical , South African , Australian, and Antarctic ),

598-425: The planet's surface. Ten hotspots were originally identified by Myer; the current 36 used to cover more than 15.7% of all the land but have lost around 85% of their area. This loss of habitat is why approximately 60% of the world's terrestrial life lives on only 2.4% of the land surface area. Caribbean Islands like Haiti and Jamaica are facing serious pressures on the populations of endemic plants and vertebrates as

624-524: The protea family ( Proteaceae ), heath family ( Ericaceae ), and reed family of restios ( Restionaceae ). Other vegetation types are sandveld , a soft coastal scrubland found mostly on the west-facing coast of the Western Cape Province , on tertiary sands. Renosterveld is a grassy shrubland dominated by members of the daisy family ( Asteraceae ), particularly renosterbos ( Elytropappus rhinocerotis ), graminoids and geophytes, occurring on

650-475: The reference Floristic region In traditional schemes, areas in phytogeography are classified hierarchically, according to the presence of endemic families, genera or species, e.g., in floral (or floristic , phytogeographic ) zones and regions , or also in kingdoms , regions and provinces , sometimes including the categories empire and domain . However, some authors prefer not to rank areas, referring to them simply as "areas", "regions" (in

676-449: The tropics; likewise, most hotspots are tropical. Of the 36 biodiversity hotspots, 15 are classified as old, climatically-buffered, infertile landscapes (OCBILs). These areas have been historically isolated from interactions with other climate zones, but recent human interaction and encroachment have put these historically safe hotspots at risk. OCBILs have mainly been threatened by the relocation of indigenous groups and military actions, as

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