Blogs posted from this ecoregion:
- Zambezian and Mopane Woodlands: carbon-based birds (April 2015)
The mopane is a distinctive tree of hot dry areas with butterfly shaped leaves (which fold in extreme heat), taking its name from a Setswana word for butterfly. This mopane-dominated ecoregion looks for the most part like a messy upside-down “U” cupped over and inter-digitated with various miombo ecoregions. The top part of the “U” more or less snakes along the right-of-way of the Zambezi River, one of the great rivers of southern Africa. In the west, the ecoregion starts in Namibia along the Okavango River but skirts southward of the great Okavango Delta of northern Botswana (part of the Zambezian Flooded Grasslands, AT0907), into which the Okavango disappears. The ecoregion then follows the Zambezi River as it winds it way from Botswana, forms the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, and into Mozambique. Leaving the Zambezi, the ecoregion widens to the south to its largest and most extensive areas, in important swathes of Mozambique, southern Zimbabwe, South Africa (including Kruger National Park), and much of Swaziland.
Disjunct chunks of the ecoregion are scattered around to the north: strips of southern Zambia (including the great parks of the Luangwa Valley in Eastern Province) and patches in southern Malawi (Shire River Valley) and northwestern Mozambique. The ecoregion extends along the largest part of four of southern Africa’s important rivers: the Zambezi, Luangwa, Shire, and Limpopo.
Description of the Ecoregion
A detailed description of the ecoregion can be found at WWF’s site (the map above is a screen shot from that Wildfinder site).
Briefly, the ecoregion occurs in lower elevation areas, often along major river valleys, and in the north borders three miombo ecoregions which surround it in higher-elevation and higher rainfall areas. To the south, again elevation is the major factor that separates this ecoregion from various higher-elevation bushveld and grassland ecoregions.
The ecoregion is relatively dry (450 to 710 mm/year), with precipitation mostly restricted to the November-April period. Elevation is mostly 200-600 m (but can be up to 1500 m in isolated escarpments and mountains that fall within it).
The ecoregion is characterized primarily by woodlands dominated by mopane trees (Colophospermum mopane), particularly in central, western, and northern parts of the ecoregion. In these dry woodlands, mopane is a dominant species, often forming a sole-species canopy. Mopane communities can range from dense woodlands (with trees up to 25 m) to scrubby open savanna/woodlands with the mopane no more than 3 m high.
The ecoregion also includes a diverse range of “Zambezian woodlands” which are floristically diverse communities not dominated by any single tree species (as in mopane communities) nor having the floristic assemblages typical of miombo woodlands.
A remarkably large proportion of the ecoregion falls in protected areas (nearly half the ecoregion), thanks in part to being relatively less suited for agriculture compared to wetter nearby areas. It includes world-famous national parks such as Kruger, Zambia’s parks of the Luangwa and Zambezi River Valleys, and many others in Botswana, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Mozambique.
Birds of the Ecoregion
Mopane communities are not notable for a large number of endemics, of any plant or animal group. Three mammal species typical of the ecoregion, and much less common in miombo areas, are black-backed jackal, kudu, and impala. The ecoregion is however famous for sensational concentrations of mammal populations (elephants, rhinos, ungulates). Indeed, elephant browsing and fire are the two major factors that shape the vegetation and ecosystems of the ecoregion.
The following bird species are noted by WWF as near-endemics: : Lilian’s Lovebird (Agapornis lilianae), Black-cheeked Lovebird (Agapornis nigrigenis), Pink-throated Twinspot (Hypargos margaritatus), Chaplin’s Barbet (Lybius chaplini), Boulder chat (Pinarornis plumosus), and Lemon-breasted Canary (Serinus citrinipectus).
WWF also notes that Chobe National Park in Botswana is one of the main breeding sites for the rare Slaty Eret (Egretta vinaceigula), and the eastern population of the White Stork (Ciconia ciconia) uses Zambia’s Luangwa Valley as its wintering ground.
Resources for the Ecoregion Birder
I am not aware of any bird-related publications that focus specifically on this ecoregion or on mopane woodlands. The best resources available would be those that cover more generally the countries that form the ecoregion.