What is Zonation in relation to biology?

Hey there,

Zonation is a bit of biological terminology that refers to the way an ecosystem can be divided up into zones based on a particular factor, such as altitude or latitude and so on.

A mountain covered in forest is a good example. Say, for arguments sake, that the from ground level to 200m you get mature forest with a well established canopy and sub canopy set up.

From 200-400m you could have a more sparsely forested area, with different types of trees and finally, the top of the mountain could not be forested at all, only covered by tussock grass and small shrubs.

Of course that's just a hypothetical situation, but it's the basics of zonation.

As something, such as altitude changes, we see a related change in things like species abundance and types of habitat etc.

Another classic ecosystem that is used for referring to zonation is the rocky shore. In this case it's the tides that are the governing factor. You get the supra littoral zone, basically the area above the high-tide water mark, sub-littoral being below low tide water mark, and the eulittoral falling in the intertidal zone. These distinct zones come together to form the "zonation" pattern of the ecosystem.

I hope this helps!

Kev

JUST TO SUM it all up

Zonation is bands of oraganism that may form in relation to a gradient in a major environment factors. This is called zonation. The gradient can be fro high to low,vice versa

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