North Saharan steppe and woodlands


The North Saharan steppe and woodlands is a desert ecoregion, in the Deserts and xeric shrublands biome, that forms the northern edge of the Sahara. It extends east and west across Northern Africa, south of the Mediterranean dry woodlands and steppe ecoregion of the Maghreb and Cyrenaica, which is part of the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome. Winter rains sustain shrublands and dry woodlands that form an ecotone between the Mediterranean climate regions to the north and the hyper-arid Sahara Desert ecoregion to the south.

Geography

The North Saharan steppe and woodlands covers in Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, and Western Sahara.
The climate in this ecoregion is hot and dry in the summer but cooler with some rain in the winter. Atlantic depressions sometimes penetrate inland between October and April. Rainfall is erratic, but averages in the north and in the south. During the summer, temperatures regularly rise to and evaporation far exceeds precipitation.

Ecology

There are varying habitats in the ecoregion including sandy systems, rocky plateaus, wadis, depressions and mountains. Each has its own characteristic species and there is considerable endemism of both plants and animals in the area. Small mammals endemic to the Sahara area include the four-toed jerboa, North African gerbil, James's gerbil, pale gerbil, lesser short-tailed gerbil, sand gerbil, fat-tailed gerbil and Shaw's jird. Larger mammals include the dorcas gazelle, mountain gazelle and slender-horned gazelle. There are a variety of snakes and lizards, including two endemic species, desert agama and Natterer's gecko. There are few amphibians, Brongersma's toad being endemic to the coastal region of North Africa. Among the bird species, the Houbara bustard and Nubian bustard have decreased in numbers because of hunting pressure.