Eastern Taiwan
ID
758
Author(s)
J. Hales
Countries
Taiwan
Major Habitat Type
Tropical and subtropical coastal rivers
Drainages flowing into
Philippine Sea
Main rivers to other water bodies
Lanyang and Peinan rivers
Description
Boundaries
This ecoregion includes the basins on the island of Taiwan that drain east of the Chungyang Range into the Philippine Sea. It extends from the southernmost extremity of the island (Eluanbi) to Wushibi (the cape about 25 km SSE of Yilan) in the north. The ecoregion also includes the offshore islands of Lü Tao (Green Island) and Lan Yü (Orchid Island).
Terrestrial habitats
The terrestrial ecoregions include the Taiwan subtropical evergreen forests [IM0172] and South Taiwan monsoon rain forests [IM0171] at the southern end of the island (Wikramanayake et al. 2002).
Description of endemic fishes
This ecoregion includes only a handful of endemics, such as the species Rhinogobius delicates.
Justification for delineation
For Southeast Asia, delineations were determined using a bottom-up approach that employed both published and unpublished field data and expert assessment (Abell et al. 2008). The ecoregion corresponds to regions V and VI of Chen and Fang (1999).
References
- Abell, Robin,M.L. Thieme,C. Revenga,M. Bryer,M. Kottelat,N. Bogutskaya,B. Coad,N. Mandrak,S.C. Balderas,W. Bussing,M.L.J. Stiassny,P. Skelton,G.R. Allen,P. Unmack,A. Naseka,R. Ng,N. Sindorf,J. Robertson,E. Armijo,J.V. Higgins,T.J. Heibel,E. Wikramanayake, (2008). "Freshwater Ecoregions of the World: A New Map of Biogeographic Units for Freshwater Biodiversity Conservation" BioScience 58 (5) pp. 403-414.
- Chen, I. Shiung;Fang, Lee-Shing (1999). "The freshwater and estuarine fishes of Taiwan" Pingtung, Taiwan: National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium.
- Wikramanayake, Eric,Dinerstein, Eric,Loucks, C.,Olson, D.M.,Morrison, J.,Lamoreux, J. L.,McKnight, M.;Hedao, P. (2002). "Terrestrial ecoregions of the Indo-Pacific: A conservation assessment" Washington, DC: Island Press.