Natural areas of Australia - many deserts and few forests
The presence of natural areas on the mainland and their locationdirectly depend on climatic zones. Proceeding from the fact that Australia is considered the most arid continent, it becomes clear that there can not be a great variety here. But the natural zones of Australia have an extraordinary uniqueness of the plant and animal world.
Many deserts and few forests
On the smallest continent is well tracedzoning. This is due to the predominantly flat character of the relief. The natural zones of Australia gradually change one another in the meridional direction, following a change in temperature and precipitation.
The southern tropic crosses the continent almost in the middle,and most of its territory is in the hot tropical climatic zone, which makes the climate arid. By the number of precipitation annual precipitation Australia is among the last of all continents. Most of its territory during the year receives only 250 mm of precipitation. In many parts of the continent, rain falls for several years.
Australia, whose natural areas are dividedthe continent is divided into three parts, in the east and west there are several zones stretched along the coast, where the amount of precipitation is much higher. The mainland is in the first place in the relative area of desert areas and last in the area of forests. In addition, only 2% of Australia's forests are of industrial importance.
Features of natural areas
Savannah and woodlands are located in the subequatorial climatic zone. The vegetation is dominated by herbs, among which are acacia, eucalyptus, and bottle trees.
In the east of the mainland, in conditions of sufficient moisture, there are such natural areas of Australia as wetlands rainforests. Among the palms, ficuses and tree ferns live marsupial anteaters, wombats, kangaroos.
The natural areas of Australia differ fromsimilar territories on other continents. For example, semi-deserts and tropical deserts occupy huge areas on the mainland - almost 44% of its territory. In the Australian deserts, you can find unusual thickets of dry thorny bushes, called scrabs. Sites of semi-deserts, overgrown with hard grass plants and shrubs, are used as pastures for sheep. There are also large sand deserts, which differ from the deserts of other continents in that they do not have oases.
In the south-east and south-west of the continent, there are subtropical forests in which eucalyptus and evergreen beech grow.
Originality of the organic world
Flora of Australia, thanks to a longisolation from other continents, has a large number of endemic plants. Almost 75% of them can be seen only here and nowhere else. More than 600 species of eucalyptus, 490 species of acacia and 25 species of Kazaurin occur on the mainland.
The animal world is even more peculiar.Among animals, endemics make up almost 90%. Only in Australia can you find mammals that have disappeared on other continents long ago, for example, echidna and platypus - ancient primitive animals.
