Warm-Temperate Zonobiome: Afrotemperate Forests

Afrotemperate forests are a representative of the zonobiome T3 Warm-Temperate Zone. The flagship regional biome of these evergreen forests dominated by species of such genera as Afrocarpus, Curtisia, Diospyros, Ilex, Nuxia, Ocotea, Olea, Olinia, Podocarpus, Pterocelastrus, Rapanea, Widdringtonia and many more, are the coastal Knysna-Tsitsikamma forests straddling the borders of the Western and Eastern Cape Provinces of South Africa. Starting on the east-facing slopes of Table Mountain, surrounded by Cape Town, these forests are found further eastwards and north-eastwards as well as further inland towards lower latitudes. These inland forests, which in the MBSA reach as far as the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe and Mozambique, are of a mistbelt nature—they occur in climatic belts under the influence of precipitating sea-borne cloud/mist masses. The floristically relatively uniform afrotemperate forests also occur as extrazonal regional biomes in deep valleys—often associated with main mountain streams. Here, they occur on steep talus slopes. The extrazonality of these forests is underlined by them being embedded within the Fynbos and Highveld biomes or straddling the borders between the Highveld grasslands and Mesic Savanna. In total, there are four zonal (Cape Afrotemperate Forest, Southern Mistbelt Forest, Northern Mistbelt Forest and Manica-Mulanje Mistbelt Forest) and four extrazonal (Cape Talus Forest, Bushveld Talus Forest, Drakensberg Afrotemperate Forest and Eastern Highveld Afrotemperate Forest) regional biomes.