What is a savanna grassland?
Savanna is grassland with scattered individual trees. Savannas of one sort or another cover almost half the surface of Africa (about five million square miles, generally central Africa) and large areas of Australia, South America, and India. Climate is the most important factor in creating a savanna.
Is a savanna a terrestrial ecosystem?
Regions of similar climate and dominant plant types are called biomes. This chapter describes some of the major terrestrial biomes in the world; tropical forests, savannas, deserts, temperate grasslands, temperate deciduous forests, Mediterranean scrub, coniferous forests, and tundra (Figure 4).
What type of ecosystem is South Africa?
Ecological Regions Of South Africa
| Ecological Regions Of South Africa (as per World Wide Fund for Nature) | Biome |
|---|---|
| Western Orange | Southern Temperate Freshwater |
| Zambezian and Mopane woodlands | Tropical and Subtropical Grasslands, Savannas, and Shrublands |
| Zambezian coastal flooded savanna | Flooded Grasslands and Savannas |
What ecosystem dominates Africa?
The Southern African Bushveld belongs to the vast savanna biome, the dominant vegetation of Africa, occupying 54 percent of southern Africa (Cowling et al. 1997), 60 percent of sub-Saharan Africa (Scholes and Walker 1993), and 12 percent of the global land surface (Scholes and Hall 1996).
What are the features of savanna grassland?
Savanna vegetation includes scrub , grasses and occasional trees, which grow near water holes , seasonal rivers or aquifers . Plants and animals have to adapt to the long dry periods. Many plants are xerophytic – for example, the acacia tree with its small, waxy leaves and thorns.
Who lives in the African savanna?
Many peoples live in the savannahs: the Nubians in the upper Sudanese Nubia, the Kualngo and the Akan in the Ivory Coast, the Bushmen and the Hottentots in Namibia. The Masai The best known people of this habitat are the Masai.
Is South Africa a savanna?
The savannas of South Africa cover more than a third of the country, curling up from the arid Kalahari through Free State, North West and Gauteng, fattening around Limpopo and the western edge of Mpumalanga, then extending over the Drakensberg and down through KwaZulu-Natal into Eastern Cape.