The following is a list of marine ecoregions, as defined by the WWF and The Nature Conservancy
The WWF/Nature Conservancy scheme groups the individual ecoregions into 12 marine realms, which represent the broad latitudinal divisions of polar, temperate, and tropical seas, with subdivisions based on ocean basins. The marine realms are subdivided into 62 marine provinces, which include one or more of the 232 marine ecoregions.
The WWF/Nature Conservancy scheme currently encompasses only coastal and continental shelf areas.[a][b]
(no provinces identified)
- North Greenland
- North and East Iceland
- East Greenland Shelf
- West Greenland Shelf
- Northern Grand Banks-Southern Labrador
- Northern Labrador
- Baffin Bay-Davis Strait
- Hudson Complex
- Lancaster Sound
- High Arctic Archipelago
- Beaufort-Admunsen-Viscount Melville-Queen Maud
- Beaufort Sea-continental coast and shelf
- Chukchi Sea
- Eastern Bering Sea
- East Siberian Sea
- Laptev Sea
- Kara Sea
- North and East Barents Sea
- White Sea
Northern European Seas
edit- South and West Iceland
- Faroe Plateau
- Southern Norway
- Northern Norway and Finnmark
- Baltic Sea
- North Sea
- Celtic Seas
Lusitanian
edit- Adriatic Sea
- Aegean Sea
- Levantine Sea
- Tunisian Plateau/Gulf of Sidra
- Ionian Sea
- Western Mediterranean
- Alboran Sea
Black Sea
editCold Temperate Northwest Atlantic
edit- Gulf of St. Lawrence-Eastern Scotian Shelf
- Southern Grand Banks-South Newfoundland
- Scotian Shelf
- Gulf of Maine-Bay of Fundy
- Virginian
- Carolinian
- Northern Gulf of Mexico
- Bermuda
- Bahamian
- Eastern Caribbean
- Greater Antilles
- Southwestern Caribbean
- Western Caribbean
- Southern Gulf of Mexico
- Floridian
- Sao Pedro and Sao Paulo Islands
- Fernando de Noronha and Atol das Rocas
- Northeastern Brazil
- Eastern Brazil
- Trindade and Martin Vaz Islands
St. Helena and Ascension Islands
edit- Northern Monsoon Current Coast
- East African Coral Coast
- Seychelles
- Cargados Carajos
- Tromelin Island
- Mascarene Islands
- Southeast Madagascar
- Western and Northern Madagascar
- Bight of Sofala/Swamp Coast
- Delagoa
- Western India
- South India and Sri Lanka
- Eastern India
- Northern Bay of Bengal
- Andaman and Nicobar Islands
- Andaman Sea Coral Coast
- Western Sumatra
- Gulf of Tonkin
- Southern China
- South China Sea Oceanic Islands
- Gulf of Thailand
- Southern Vietnam
- Sunda Shelf/Java Sea
- Malacca Strait
Java Transitional
edit- Southern Java
- Cocos-Keeling/Christmas Island
South Kuroshio
edit- South Kuroshio
Tropical Northwestern Pacific
edit- Ogasawara Islands
- Mariana Islands
- East Caroline Islands
- West Caroline Islands
Western Coral Triangle
edit- Palawan/North Borneo
- Eastern Philippines
- Sulawesi Sea/Makassar Strait
- Halmahera
- Papua
- Banda Sea
- Lesser Sunda
- Northeast Sulawesi
Eastern Coral Triangle
edit- Bismarck Sea
- Solomon Archipelago
- Solomon Sea
- Southeast Papua New Guinea
Northeast Australian Shelf
editNorthwest Australian Shelf
editTropical Southwestern Pacific
editLord Howe and Norfolk Islands
edit- Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands
Hawaii
editMarquesas
editEaster Island
edit- Central Peru
- Humboldtian
- Central Chile
- Araucanian
Juan Fernandez and Desventuradas
editMagellanic
edit- North Patagonian Gulfs
- Patagonian Shelf
- Falkland Islands
- Channels and Fjords of Southern Chile
- Chiloense
Tristan-Gough
editBenguela
edit- Namib
- Namaqua
Agulhas
edit- Agulhas Bank
- Natal
Amsterdam-St Paul
editNorthern New Zealand
edit- Kermadec Islands (195)
- Northeastern New Zealand (196)
- Three Kings-North Cape (197)
Southern New Zealand
edit- Chatham Island (198)
- Central New Zealand (199)
- South New Zealand (200)
- Snares Island (201)
- Tweed-Moreton (202)
- Manning-Hawkesbury (203)
- Cape Howe (204)
- Bassian (205)
- Western Bassian (206)
- South Australian Gulfs (207)
- Great Australian Bight (208)
- Leeuwin (209)
- Macquarie Island
- Heard Island and McDonald Islands
- Kerguelen Islands
- Crozet Islands
- Prince Edward Islands
- Bouvet Island
- Peter the First Island
- South Sandwich Islands
- South Georgia
- South Orkney Islands
- South Shetland Islands
- Antarctic Peninsula
See also
editNotes
edit- ^ One classification of the deep oceans is PPOW:
Spalding, Mark D.; Agostini, Vera N.; Rice, Jake; Grant, Susie M. (2012). "Pelagic provinces of the world: A biogeographic classification of the world's surface pelagic waters". Ocean & Coastal Management. 60: 19–30. Bibcode:2012OCM....60...19S. doi:10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2011.12.016. - ^ Ocean-floor environments are examined in Watling, et al. 2013:
Watling, Les; Guinotte, John; Clark, Malcolm R.; Smith, Craig R. (April 2013). "A proposed biogeography of the deep ocean floor" (PDF). Progress in Oceanography. 111: 91–112. Bibcode:2013PrOce.111...91W. doi:10.1016/j.pocean.2012.11.003.
References
edit- Spalding, Mark D., Helen E. Fox, Gerald R. Allen, Nick Davidson et al. "Marine Ecoregions of the World: A Bioregionalization of Coastal and Shelf Areas". Bioscience Vol. 57 No. 7, July/August 2007, pp. 573–583.
External links
editWikimedia Commons has media related to Marine ecosystems.
- World Wildlife Fund—WWF: Marine Ecoregions of the World (MEOW)
- Queries listing ecoregions [1] and provinces [2] from Wikidata