Temperate South America is a biogeographic region of the Earth's seas, comprising the temperate and subtropical waters of South America, including both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts of the continent and adjacent islands. It also includes the remote Gough Island and Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic Ocean.
Temperate Southern Africa is a marine realm, one of the great biogeographic divisions of the world's ocean basins.
The Atlantic coast is influenced by the Brazil Current, which carries warm tropical waters south along the coast. On the Pacific coast, the cold Humboldt Current carries cold Antarctic waters north towards the tropics.
Subdivisions
The Temperate South America realm is divided into five marine provinces. The three larger provinces are composed of smaller ecoregions.[2]
Despite their geographical proximity to the South American coast, these islands have also been included in the Oceanian realm, due to strong Hawaiian and southeast Polynesian biogeographic influences and the presence of an endemic insect and plant family.[3]
^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.[1]
^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.[2]
