Abstract
In the tropics with summer rain that have a pronounced dry period during the cooler season, a mosaic of trees, shrubs and grassland (savannas) generally constitutes the predominant vegetation. It is characterized by the coexistence of C4 grasses and small evergreen trees (on extremely nutrient-poor soils in Australia and South America, in particular on soils poor in phosphorus) or raingreen trees (on better soils such as in Africa). This coexistence is controlled by frequent but irregular fires of varying intensity and duration, and – only in Africa – by large herbivores. Without fire and grazing, the potential vegetation under the prevailing climatic conditions consists of raingreen or evergreen (“sclerophyllous”) broad-leaved forests, depending on the amount of annual precipitation. Such forests occur in the transition to tropical rainforests, in edaphic savannas and in regions less affected by fire or grazing, or both. The transition between savanna and forest is continuous.
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Pfadenhauer, J.S., Klötzli, F.A. (2020). Zonal Vegetation of the Tropical Zone with Summer Rain. In: Global Vegetation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49860-3_3
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