Ecoregions 2017 - By Ecoregion

Ecoregions are defined as relatively large units of land or water containing a distinct assemblage of natural communities sharing a large majority of species, dynamics, and environmental conditions. The original Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World (TEOW)(see Olsen et al., 2001) was comprised of 867 terrestrial ecoregions, classified into 14 different biomes such as forests, grasslands, or deserts. Ecoregions represent the original distribution of distinct assemblages of species and communities. The revised data shown here – Ecoregions2017 – is unchanged for large sections of Earth's seven biogeographical realms but differs from the original map in four regions: the Arabian Peninsula, some of the desert and drier ecoregions of the African continent, Antarctica, and the southeastern United States.

See Dinerstein, E., et al. 2017. An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm. BioScience 67, 534–545. [https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/67/6/534/3102935]

For further information please visit the RESOLVE Ecoregions2017 appspot [https://ecoregions2017.appspot.com/]

Data usage licence: CC BY 4.0 [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/]