Abstract
This chapter describes the vegetation of the largest ecozone on Earth, which covers 21% of the entire land surface. It includes xerophytic dry forests and shrublands as well as succulent, dwarf shrub, halophyte and grass semi-deserts; furthermore, hot deserts with a plant cover only in ephemeral riverbeds and in areas with fog precipitation are discussed in this chapter. The diversity of the vegetation is attributable to the temporal variability of precipitation, which is characteristic of the transitional area between the tropics and subtropics. Both individually and in combination, the flora exhibits a wealth of strategies to ensure survival under hot and dry site conditions; these are reflected in the growth and life-forms of the species, i.e. stem and leaf succulents, phreatophytes, xerophytes, halophytes, ephemerals, fog-harvesting plants, and others.
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Pfadenhauer, J.S., Klötzli, F.A. (2020). Zonal Vegetation of the Tropical-Subtropical Dry Zone. In: Global Vegetation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49860-3_6
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