[ Excerpt from oneearth.org ]
What is a bioregion? A bioregion is a geographical area defined not by political boundaries but by ecological systems. It is smaller in scale than a biogeographical realm, but larger than an ecoregion or an ecosystem. On land, the most widely held bioregional framework is the biome or “ecozone” — a large community of plants and animals adapted to a specific climate found over a range of continents. There are 14 widely held biome types, mapped below with an overlay of the 185 bioregions:
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands (rust)
- Mountain Grasslands & Shrublands (beige)
- Temperate Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands (yellow)
- Tropical & Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands (orange)
- Flooded Grasslands & Savannas (light blue)
- Mangroves (pink)
- Mediterranean Forests, Woodlands & Scrub (red)
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests (dark green)
- Temperate Conifer Forests (grey-green)
- Tropical & Subtropical Coniferous Forests (light green)
- Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests (olive green)
- Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests (bright green)
- Boreal Forests/Taiga (medium blue)
- Tundra (teal)
