Sundaland
Encyclopedia
Biogeography
Biogeography is the study of the distribution of species , organisms, and ecosystems in space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities vary in a highly regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, isolation and habitat area...
region of Southeastern Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
which encompasses the areas of the Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
n continental shelf that was exposed during the last ice age. It included the Malay Peninsula
Malay Peninsula
The Malay Peninsula or Thai-Malay Peninsula is a peninsula in Southeast Asia. The land mass runs approximately north-south and, at its terminus, is the southern-most point of the Asian mainland...
on the Asian mainland, as well as the large islands of Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
, Java, and Sumatra
Sumatra
Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
and their surrounding islands. The eastern boundary of Sundaland is the Wallace Line
Wallace Line
The Wallace Line separates the ecozones of Asia and Wallacea, a transitional zone between Asia and Australia. West of the line are found organisms related to Asiatic species; to the east, a mixture of species of Asian and Australian origin is present...
, identified by Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist...
, which marks the eastern boundary of the Asia's land mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
fauna, and is the boundary of the Indomalaya
Indomalaya
The Indomalaya ecozone is one of the eight ecozones that cover the planet's land surface. It extends across most of South and Southeast Asia and into the southern parts of East Asia....
and Australasia ecozone
Australasia ecozone
The Australasian zone is an ecological region that is coincident, but not synonymous , with the geographic region of Australasia...
s. The islands east of the Wallace line are known as Wallacea
Wallacea
Wallacea is a biogeographical designation for a group of Indonesian islands separated by deep water straits from the Asian and Australian continental shelves. Wallacea includes Sulawesi, the largest island in the group, as well as Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Sumba, Timor, Halmahera, Buru, Seram, and...
, and are considered part of Australasia. The Austronesian languages
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
are theorized to have originated from the area, and the islands which are the remnants of Sundaland were likely populated as early as 50,000 years ago.
History
The South China SeaSouth China Sea
The South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Singapore and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around...
and adjoining landmasses had been investigated by scientists such as Molengraaff
Gustaaf Adolf Frederik Molengraaff
Gustaaf Adolf Frederik Molengraaff was a Dutch geologist, biologist and explorer. He became an authority on the geology of South Africa and the Dutch East Indies....
and Umbgrove
Johannes Herman Frederik Umbgrove
Johannes Herman Frederik Umbgrove , called in short Jan Umbgrove, was a Dutch geologist and Earth scientist.Umbgrove studied geology at Leiden University, he finished his studies in 1926...
who had postulated ancient now submerged drainage systems. These have been mapped by Tjia in 1980 and described in greater detail by Emmel and Curray in 1982 complete with river delta
River delta
A delta is a landform that is formed at the mouth of a river where that river flows into an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, flat arid area, or another river. Deltas are formed from the deposition of the sediment carried by the river as the flow leaves the mouth of the river...
s, floodplain
Floodplain
A floodplain, or flood plain, is a flat or nearly flat land adjacent a stream or river that stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls and experiences flooding during periods of high discharge...
s and backswamps. The ecology of the exposed Sunda shelf has been investigated by analyzing cores drilled into the ocean bed. The pollens found in the cores have revealed a complex ecosystem that changed over time. The flooding of Sundaland separated species that had once shared the same environment such as the river threadfin
Threadfin
Threadfins are silvery grey perciform marine fish of the family Polynemidae. Found in tropical to subtropical waters throughout the world, the threadfin family contains nine genera and 33 species...
(Polydactylus macrophthalmus, Bleeker 1858) that had once thrived in a river system now called "North Sunda River" or "Molengraaff river". Now the fish is known from the Kapuas River
Kapuas River
The Kapuas River is a river in the Indonesian part of Borneo island, at the geographic center of Maritime Southeast Asia. At in length, it is the longest river of Indonesia and one of the world's longest island rivers...
on Borneo and the Musi and Batanghari rivers on Sumatra
Sumatra
Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
in Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
.
Some scholars like Oppenheimer
Stephen Oppenheimer
Stephen Oppenheimer is a British paediatrician, geneticist, and writer. He is a member of Green Templeton College, Oxford and an honorary fellow of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and carries out and publishes research in the fields of genetics and human prehistory.-Career:Oppenheimer...
locate the origin of the Austronesian languages
Austronesian languages
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...
in Sundaland and its upper regions. Genetic research reported in 2008 indicates that the islands which are the remnants of Sundaland were likely populated as early as 50,000 years ago, contrary to a previous hypothesis that they were populated as late as 10,000 years ago from Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
.
Ecology
The islands of Sundaland rest on an extension of Asia's shallow continental shelfContinental shelf
The continental shelf is the extended perimeter of each continent and associated coastal plain. Much of the shelf was exposed during glacial periods, but is now submerged under relatively shallow seas and gulfs, and was similarly submerged during other interglacial periods. The continental margin,...
called the Sunda shelf
Sunda Shelf
Geologically, the Sunda Shelf is a south east extension of the continental shelf of Southeast Asia. Major landmasses on the shelf include the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Madura, Bali and their surrounding smaller islands. It covers an area of approximately 1.85 million km2...
. During the ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
s, sea levels were lower and all of Sundaland was an extension of the Asian continent.
As a result, the islands of Sundaland are home to many Asian mammals including elephants, monkey
Monkey
A monkey is a primate, either an Old World monkey or a New World monkey. There are about 260 known living species of monkey. Many are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent. Unlike apes, monkeys...
s, ape
Ape
Apes are Old World anthropoid mammals, more specifically a clade of tailless catarrhine primates, belonging to the biological superfamily Hominoidea. The apes are native to Africa and South-east Asia, although in relatively recent times humans have spread all over the world...
s, tiger
Tiger
The tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...
s, tapir
Tapir
A Tapir is a large browsing mammal, similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile snout. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South America, Central America, and Southeast Asia. There are four species of Tapirs: the Brazilian Tapir, the Malayan Tapir, Baird's Tapir and the Mountain...
s, and rhinoceros
Rhinoceros
Rhinoceros , also known as rhino, is a group of five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. Two of these species are native to Africa and three to southern Asia....
. The Wallace Line
Wallace Line
The Wallace Line separates the ecozones of Asia and Wallacea, a transitional zone between Asia and Australia. West of the line are found organisms related to Asiatic species; to the east, a mixture of species of Asian and Australian origin is present...
, which includes the Lombok Strait
Lombok Strait
The Lombok Strait is a strait connecting the Java Sea to the Indian Ocean, located between the islands of Bali and Lombok in Indonesia. The Gili Islands are on the Lombok side....
between Bali and Lombok
Lombok
Lombok is an island in West Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. It forms part of the chain of the Lesser Sunda Islands, with the Lombok Strait separating it from Bali to the west and the Alas Strait between it and Sumbawa to the east...
, and the Makassar Strait
Makassar Strait
Makassar Strait is a strait between the islands of Borneo and Sulawesi in Indonesia. To the north it joins the Celebes Sea, while to the south it meets the Java Sea.The Mahakam River of Borneo empties into the strait....
between Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
and Sulawesi
Sulawesi
Sulawesi is one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia and is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands. In Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger Indonesian populations.- Etymology :The Portuguese were the first to...
, marks the end of the Asian continental shelf, and the islands of Wallacea are separated from Asia and from Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
by deep ocean.
Botanists often include Sundaland, the adjacent Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, Wallacea
Wallacea
Wallacea is a biogeographical designation for a group of Indonesian islands separated by deep water straits from the Asian and Australian continental shelves. Wallacea includes Sulawesi, the largest island in the group, as well as Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Sumba, Timor, Halmahera, Buru, Seram, and...
and New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
in a single Floristic province
Floristic province
A phytochorion, in phytogeography, is a geographic area with a relatively uniform composition of plant species. Adjacent phytochoria do not usually have a sharp boundary, but rather a soft one, a transitional area in which many species from both regions overlap...
of Malesia
Malesia
Malesia is a biogeographical region straddling the boundaries of the Indomalaya ecozone and Australasia ecozone, and also a phytogeographical floristic region in the Paleotropical Kingdom.-Floristic province:...
, based on similarities in their flora, which is predominantly of Asian origin.
Ecoregions of Sundaland
Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forestsTropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests
Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests , also known as tropical moist forests, are a tropical and subtropical forest biome....
- Borneo lowland rain forests (BorneoBorneoBorneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
) - Borneo montane rain forestsBorneo montane rain forestsThe Borneo montane rain forests are an ecoregion, of Cloud forest, within the Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests Biome, of the island of Borneo in south-east Asia .-Location and description:...
(BorneoBorneoBorneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
) - Borneo peat swamp forestsBorneo peat swamp forestsThe Borneo peat swamp forests ecoregion, within the Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests Biome, are on the island of Borneo, which is divided between Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia.-Location and description:...
(BorneoBorneoBorneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
) - Eastern Java–Bali montane rain forests (BaliBaliBali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east...
, Java) - Eastern Java–Bali rain forests (BaliBaliBali is an Indonesian island located in the westernmost end of the Lesser Sunda Islands, lying between Java to the west and Lombok to the east...
, Java) - Mentawai Islands rain forests (Mentawai IslandsMentawai IslandsThe Mentawai Islands are a chain of about seventy islands and islets off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. Siberut is the largest of the islands. The other major islands are Sipura, North Pagai and South Pagai . The islands lie approximately 150 km off the Sumatran coast, across the...
) - Peninsular Malaysian montane rain forests (Malay peninsulaMalay PeninsulaThe Malay Peninsula or Thai-Malay Peninsula is a peninsula in Southeast Asia. The land mass runs approximately north-south and, at its terminus, is the southern-most point of the Asian mainland...
) - Peninsular Malaysian peat swamp forestsPeninsular Malaysian peat swamp forestsThe Peninsular Malaysian peat swamp forests ecoregion, in the Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests Biome, are of the Malay Peninsula, which includes portions of Malaysia and southern Thailand.-Setting:...
(Malay peninsulaMalay PeninsulaThe Malay Peninsula or Thai-Malay Peninsula is a peninsula in Southeast Asia. The land mass runs approximately north-south and, at its terminus, is the southern-most point of the Asian mainland...
) - Peninsular Malaysian rain forests (Anambas Islands, Malay peninsulaMalay PeninsulaThe Malay Peninsula or Thai-Malay Peninsula is a peninsula in Southeast Asia. The land mass runs approximately north-south and, at its terminus, is the southern-most point of the Asian mainland...
) - Southwest Borneo freshwater swamp forests (BorneoBorneoBorneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
) - Sumatran freshwater swamp forests (SumatraSumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
) - Sumatran lowland rain forests (SumatraSumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
, NiasNiasNīas is an island off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Nias is also the name of the archipelago, containing the Hinako archipelago....
, Bangka IslandBangka IslandBangka is an island lying east of Sumatra, Indonesia. Population 626,955. Area: c.4,600 sq mi .There is an additional small island named Pulau Bangka in northern Sulawesi, Indonesia.-Geography:...
) - Sumatran montane rain forests (SumatraSumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
) - Sumatran peat swamp forests (SumatraSumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
) - Sundaland heath forests (IndonesiaIndonesiaIndonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
) - Western Java montane rain forests (Java)
- Western Java rain forests (Java)
Tropical and subtropical coniferous forests
Tropical and subtropical coniferous forests
Tropical and subtropical coniferous forests are a forest biome. They are located in regions of semi-humid climate at tropical and subtropical latitudes. Most tropical and subtropical coniferous forest ecoregions are found in the Nearctic and Neotropic ecozones, from Mexico to Nicaragua and on the...
- Sumatran tropical pine forestsSumatran tropical pine forestsThe Sumatran tropical pine forests is a subtropical coniferous forest ecoregion on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia.-Location and description:...
(SumatraSumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
)
Montane grasslands and shrublands
Montane grasslands and shrublands
Montane grasslands and shrublands is a biome defined by the World Wildlife Fund. The biome includes high altitude grasslands and shrublands around the world....
- Kinabalu montane alpine meadows (BorneoBorneoBorneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
)
Mangroves
- Sunda Shelf mangrovesSunda Shelf mangrovesThe Sunda Shelf mangroves ecoregion, in the Mangrove Biome, are on the coasts of the islands of Borneo and eastern Sumatra in Malaysia and Indonesia...
(BorneoBorneoBorneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
, SumatraSumatraSumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...
, Riau Islands)
Further reading
- Stephen OppenheimerStephen OppenheimerStephen Oppenheimer is a British paediatrician, geneticist, and writer. He is a member of Green Templeton College, Oxford and an honorary fellow of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and carries out and publishes research in the fields of genetics and human prehistory.-Career:Oppenheimer...
. Eden in the East, 1999, Phoenix (Orion) ISBN 0-7538-0679-7
Selected faunal references in Borneo
- Abdullah MT. 2003. Biogeography and variation of Cynopterus brachyotis in Southeast Asia. PhD thesis. The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Australia.
- Corbet, GB, Hill JE. 1992. The mammals of the Indomalayan region: a systematic review. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
- Hall LS, Gordon G. Grigg, Craig Moritz, Besar Ketol, Isa Sait, Wahab Marni, Abdullah MT. 2004. Biogeography of fruit bats in Southeast Asia. Sarawak Museum Journal LX(81):191-284.
- Karim, C., A.A. Tuen, Abdullah MT. 2004. Mammals. Sarawak Museum Journal Special Issue No. 6. 80: 221—234.
- Mohd. Azlan J., Ibnu Maryanto, Agus P. Kartono, Abdullah MT. 2003 Diversity, Relative Abundance and Conservation of Chiropterans in Kayan Mentarang National Park, East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Sarawak Museum Journal 79: 251-265.
- Hall LS, Richards GC, Abdullah MT. 2002. The bats of Niah National Park, Sarawak. Sarawak Museum Journal. 78: 255-282.
- Wilson DE, Reeder DM. 2005. Mammal species of the world. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC.
See also
- Sunda IslandsSunda IslandsThe Sunda Islands are a group of islands that form part of the Malay archipelago.They are further divided into the Greater Sunda Islands and the Lesser Sunda Islands.-Administration:...
- Greater Sunda IslandsGreater Sunda IslandsThe Greater Sunda Islands are a group of large islands within the Malay archipelago. Jawa , smallest but by far the most populous and important; Sumatera in the west, directly across the Strait of Malacca from Malaysia; Kalimantan, the Indonesian sector of large, compact, minicontinent Borneo; and...
- Lesser Sunda IslandsLesser Sunda IslandsThe Lesser Sunda Islands or Nusa Tenggara are a group of islands in the southern Maritime Southeast Asia, north of Australia. Together with the Greater Sunda Islands to the west they make up the Sunda Islands...
- Greater Sunda Islands
- Sunda Trench
- AustralasiaAustralasiaAustralasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...
- OceaniaOceaniaOceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
- BiogeographyBiogeographyBiogeography is the study of the distribution of species , organisms, and ecosystems in space and through geological time. Organisms and biological communities vary in a highly regular fashion along geographic gradients of latitude, elevation, isolation and habitat area...
- Plate tectonic
