Australasian ecozone

The Australasia Ecozone according to the WWF

The Australasian zone is an ecological region that is coincident, but not synonymous (by some definitions), with the geographic region of Australasia.^{[citation needed]} The ecozone includes Australia, the island of New Guinea (including Papua New Guinea and the Indonesian province of Papua), and the eastern part of the Indonesian archipelago, including the island of Sulawesi, the Moluccan islands (the Indonesian provinces of Maluku and North Maluku) and islands of Lombok, Sumbawa, Sumba, Flores, and Timor, often known as the Lesser Sundas. The Australasian ecozone also includes several Pacific island groups, including the Bismarck Archipelago, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and New Caledonia. New Zealand and its surrounding islands are a distinctive sub-region of the Australasian ecozone. The rest of Indonesia is part of the Indomalayan ecozone. ^[1]

Note that this zonation is based on flora; animals do not necessarily follow the same biogeographic boundaries. In the present case, many birds occur in both "Indomalayan" and "Australasian" regions, but not across the whole of either. On the other hand, there are few faunistic commonalities shared only by Australia and New Zealand, except some birds. Meanwhile, Australia, Melanesia and the Wallacea are united by a large share of similar animals, but few of these occur farther into the Pacific – but on the other hand, much of the Polynesian fauna is related to that of Melanesia.

See also

• Australasia
• Oceania

References

1. ^ http://www.worldwildlife.org/wildworld/profiles/terrestrial_aa.html

External links

• Media related to Australasia at Wikimedia Commons
• Map of the ecozones