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World map using color coding to show the distribution of major floral kingdoms, subkingdoms, and regions. Key floral kingdoms include Boreal (green), Neotropical (pink), Paleotropical (yellow), South African or Capensic (purple), Australian (orange), and Antarctic (blue). Boundaries for subkingdoms, regions, and divisions are marked with different colored lines, and major regions such as Indoafrican, North American, and Malesian are labeled across continents. World map displaying faunal realms and major animal regions, with color-coded areas representing the Holarctic, Paleotropical (Afro-Tethyan), Neogaean (Neotropical), Notogaean (Australian), and Oceanic realms. Major boundaries and notable regions such as Afrotropical, Oriental, Madagascan, Wallacea, Australian, and Hawaiian are labeled, and arrows indicate the hypothesized distribution of Antarctic fauna. Map outlining the Malesian floral subkingdom in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, shaded and divided into three labeled regions: Western Division (covering Sumatra, Borneo, and surrounding areas), Eastern Division (including Mindanao, Moluccas, and New Guinea), and Southern Division (including Java). Division boundaries are marked, and major islands and seas are labeled for context. World map showing major faunal regions as defined by mammalian distributions, with each region color-coded: Holarctic in green (including Nearctic and Palearctic), Afro-Tethyan in pink (including Mediterranean, Ethiopian, Oriental, and Madagascan), Latin American in tan (including Neotropical, Argentine, and West Indian), Island in yellow (including Australian and Madagascar). Major region boundaries are marked with bold lines. Map of the Indonesian archipelago showing major faunal boundaries with colored lines: Wallace's Line in blue, Huxley's modification in red, Weber's Line in purple, and Lydekker's Line in green. These lines mark biogeographic divisions between Asian and Australasian animal species across islands such as Borneo, Sulawesi, Halmahera, and New Guinea.
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World map using color coding to show the distribution of major floral kingdoms, subkingdoms, and regions. Key floral kingdoms include Boreal (green), Neotropical (pink), Paleotropical (yellow), South African or Capensic (purple), Australian (orange), and Antarctic (blue). Boundaries for subkingdoms, regions, and divisions are marked with different colored lines, and major regions such as Indoafrican, North American, and Malesian are labeled across continents.
Earth's floral regions Floral kingdoms, subkingdoms, and major regions of the world.

biogeographic region

biology
Written by
Colin Peter Groves
Professor of Biological Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra. Author of A Theory of Human and Primate Evolution and others.
Colin Peter Groves
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Britannica Editors
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History

biogeographic region, area of animal and plant distribution having similar or shared characteristics throughout.

It is a matter of general experience that the plants and animals of the land and inland waters differ to a greater or lesser degree from one part of the world to another. Why should this be? Why should the same species not exist wherever suitable environmental conditions for them prevail?

Geographic regions around the world that have similar environmental conditions are capable of harbouring the same type of biota. This situation effectively separates the biosphere into biomes—ecological communities that have the same climatic conditions and geologic features and that support species with similar life strategies and adaptations. The biome is the fundamental unit of which larger biogeographic regions (floral kingdoms and faunal realms) consist. The tropical forest is one type of terrestrial biome; it is located at various points around the planet where climatic and geologic conditions produce similar environments. The tropical forest biome contains the same general kinds of biological communities wherever it occurs; however, the individual species will not be the same from one tropical forest to another. Instead, each forest will support organisms that are ecologically equivalent—i.e., different species that have a similar life cycle and have adapted analogously to environmental conditions.

World map displaying faunal realms and major animal regions, with color-coded areas representing the Holarctic, Paleotropical (Afro-Tethyan), Neogaean (Neotropical), Notogaean (Australian), and Oceanic realms. Major boundaries and notable regions such as Afrotropical, Oriental, Madagascan, Wallacea, Australian, and Hawaiian are labeled, and arrows indicate the hypothesized distribution of Antarctic fauna.
faunal realmsFaunal realms and major regions of the world.

How the unique distributions of animals and plants in various biomes came to be is not explicable purely through present climatic factors and latitudinal zonation. Geologic events such as continental drift and past climatic conditions must be taken into consideration as well. This is the approach used in historical biogeography to study the distributions of flora and fauna throughout the world (Figures 1 and 2).

General features

The concept of biogeography

History

Biogeography, the study of animal and plant distributions (and known individually as zoogeography and phytogeography, respectively), was a subject that began to receive much attention in the 19th century. One of the first modern delimitations of biogeographic regions was created in 1858 by the English ornithologist Philip L. Sclater, who based his division of the terrestrial world on the distributions of birds. In the 1870s the biologist Adolf Engler devised a schema based on plant distributions. The phytogeographic work of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, a plant collector and systematist, and the zoogeographic work of Alfred Russel Wallace greatly influenced the work of Charles Darwin. The Darwinian theory of evolution, accordingly, was firmly rooted in the emerging biogeographic understanding of the era; in On the Origin of Species Darwin included two key chapters (12 and 13) on geographic distribution in which he referred to both Hooker and Wallace. At high altitudes in the tropics Hooker had found plants that were normally restricted to temperate zones, and Darwin interpreted these observations as evidence of past climatic change. Darwin also adopted Wallace’s view of faunal distribution among islands: those islands exhibiting similar faunas are separated only by shallow water and were once a contiguous landmass that presented no barrier to animal dispersal, whereas those islands whose faunas are dissimilar are separated by deep seaways that have always existed and barred the migration of species.

Biotic distributions

Geographic factors have played a significant role at every level of taxonomic division. Populations that become isolated by means of a geographic barrier will tend to diverge from their species. Although these barriers—which include seaways, rivers, mountain ranges, deserts, and other hostile environments—appear minor, they nevertheless can put a wedge between taxa, eventually causing related species, genera, families, and so on (on up the taxonomic hierarchy) to diverge. An example of this mechanism is seen in the Gregory Rift Valley, the eastern branch of the East African Rift System; distinctive subspecies of wildebeest are represented on either side of the rift valley, with the subspecies Connochaetes taurinus albojubatus occurring on the east side and C. taurinus hecki on the west. Other mammals such as blue, or diadem, monkeys (Cercopithecus mitis) exhibit similar geographic variation. The broad Congo River in central Africa is a barrier between many congeneric species (those that share the same genus) of primates, such as the common chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) found on the north side of the river and the pygmy chimpanzee (P. paniscus), or bonobo, living to the south of the river. More significant biogeographic divisions occur between genera of the same family that live on different continents, as is the case with African elephants (Loxodonta) and Asian elephants (Elephas). Whole families or suborders may differ from one major biogeographic realm to another, as is seen in the primate divisions of Old World monkeys (catarrhines), which are found in Africa and Asia, and the New World monkeys (platyrrhines) from South America.