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Biomes
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Thursday, 12 May 2005 |
 The characteristic and most widespread vegetation of the Cape, covering some 46 000 km2, is fynbos (literally "fine-bush") (Kruger 1979). Fynbos is a shrubland - comprising hard-leafed, evergreen, fire-prone shrubs - and is characterised four major plant types : restioids, ericoids, proteoids and bulbs. Restioids, mainly members of the Gondwanan family, the Restionaceae, are evergreen rush- or reed-like plants and are the uniquely diagnostic plant type of fynbos. The ericoids include more than 3 000 species of small-leafed shrubs (0.5-2 m tall), which give fynbos a heath-like appearance. |
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Thursday, 12 May 2005 |
 Diversity and endemism among animals in the Cape Floristic Region appears much lower than in plants, although very little is known about some invertebrate groups (Johnson 1992). Unlike the teeming savannas of Africa, fynbos landscapes support a very low density of vertebrates, undoubtedly a consequence of the low soil fertility and poor quality forage. At the time of European colonisation, the grassy renosterveld plains, with their more nutritious vegetation, supported relatively large numbers of the endemic bontebok Damaliscus dorcas dorcas, eland Taurotragus oryx, buffalo Syncerus caffer, Cape mountain zebra Equus zebra zebra, red hartebeest Alcelaphus buselaphus, and predatory lions Panthera leo. Black rhinoceros Diceros bicornis, were not uncommon and elephant Loxodonta africana, and hippopotamus Hippopotamus amphibius, inhabited the water courses. |
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Thursday, 12 May 2005 |
 In certain respects, the Cape is an island, girded to the south by the sea, and isolated from the rest of southern Africa in having extremely infertile soils and a temperate, mediterranean-type climate. The Cape landscape, dominated by rugged and fiercely folded mountains of quartzitic sandstone, is an ancient landscape that pre-dates the emergence of Africa from the Gondwana supercontinent. The sediments that we recognise today as the Cape Supergroup, were deposited between 450 and 340 million years ago in a shallow sea that separated two nascent continents - Africa and South America. |
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Thursday, 12 May 2005 |
 The typical vegetation of the Succulent Karoo is a dwarf shrubland dominated almost entirely by leaf succulents in the Mesembryanthema (Aizoiaceae), Crassulaceae, Asteraceae and Asphodelaceae (Milton et al. 1997). There are some 1 700 species of leaf succulents in the Succulent Karoo. This dominance by leaf succulents is unique among the deserts of the world (Jurgens 1986). Stem succulents, comprising some 130 species, include species of Euphorbia, Tylecodon, Othonna, Pelargonium and numerous stapeliads. |
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Thursday, 12 May 2005 |
 Unlike the summer rainfall karroid areas of southern Africa, the fauna of the Succulent Karoo is rich in endemics, especially among arachnids, hopliniid beetles, aculeate hymenoptera and reptiles (Vernon in press).
The predictable rainfall appears to have selected for resident forms of nvertebrates and small vertebrates, thus resulting in isolation and speciation. Prior to European colonisation, gemsbok Oryx gazella ranged widely on the sandy coastal plain of Namaqualand and Cape mountain zebra Equus zebra zebra were common in the uplands. During winter large herds of springbok Antidorcas marsupialis migrated along well trodden routes from the summer rainfall areas of Bushmanland on the inland plateau, whence they would return in early summer. |
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