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Coastal East Africa
Species
Only 150 Dugongs – close cousins of American manatees – are left in Africa, nearly all of them off the coast of Mozambique.
© WWF-Canon / Jürgen FREUND
**UPDATE** Tracking sea turtles in Kenya to ensure their survival
With the highest concentration of endemic animals in Africa—18,500 species of plants and animals—the coast’s waters sustain all five species of sea turtles in the Indian Ocean and 35 species of marine mammals, such as whales, dolphins and the dugong.
The highly threatened dugong, a sea cow related to the manatee, is one of the most threatened marine mammals in the world. Thousands of fish species live here - including the world's largest fish, the whale shark, and the prehistoric coelacanth - the critically endangered "dinosaur of the ocean." This large, bizarre-looking creature evolved about 400 million years ago and survived the mass extinction that marked the end of the dinosaurs. It remained known only from fossil finds and was considered extinct until the spectacular discovery of one specimen off East London, South Africa in 1938. Since then, coelacanths have been spotted in the Mozambique Channel, South Africa's Sodwana Bay, Tanzania, Kenya and Indonesia.
Many species find a haven among the Western Indian Ocean's most diverse mangrove and sea grass complexes. These habitats, along with coral reefs and open waters, form a mosaic along the coast, supporting rich populations of marine species that rely on this diversity of habitats for their productivity. All five sea turtle species of the Indian Ocean - the green turtle, hawksbill, olive ridley, loggerhead and leatherback - inhabit the Coastal East Africa region.
Just inland are African elephants, wild dogs, black rhinos, red colobus monkeys and many other species unique to this region of Africa. The region they share is spectacularly rich, complex and endangered.
The most distinctive biological attribute of the East African Coastal Forest ecoregion is the exceptionally high levels of endemism - confined to a particular geographic region - found within the remaining closed canopy forest patches. There are various kinds of closed canopy forests including dry forest, scrub forest, Brachystegia forest, riverine forest, groundwater forest, swamp forest, and coastal/afromontane transition forest. The forest patches are surrounded by coastal woodlands, wetlands, grasslands and farmlands that are much less biologically distinctive, but still support additional endemic species.
Detailed biological studies of the Eastern Africa Coastal Forests have documented levels of endemism that make them globally significant for conservation. More than 1,750 plant species and 28 plant genera are endemic. Many of these endemic plants have ancient affinities to plant groups typical of West African rainforests. Overall, there are more than 4,500 plant species and 1,050 plant genera, with around 3,000 species and 750 genera occurring in the forest. Faunal endemism rates are highest in the invertebrate groups such as millipedes, molluscs, and forest butterflies. Amongst the vertebrates, seven percent of forest mammals, 10 percent of forest birds, 57 percent of forest reptiles, and 36 percent of forest amphibians are endemic; a total of at least 80 endemic vertebrate species. Endemic animals include two ancient African mammal groups – elephant shrews and bush babies. There are also three endemic monkeys, all confined to tiny patches of remaining forest habitat. In terms of species richness, there are at least 158 species of mammals, 94 reptiles and 1200 molluscs.
The Eastern Arc is a chain of ancient mountains covered by rain forests and grasslands in Tanzania and Kenya. Scientists believe that forest has survived on the Eastern Arc Mountains for over 30 million years, and there are ancient connections to the forests of the Congo Basin and West Africa, and even to Madagascar. The Eastern Arc range comprises 12 Mountain blocks in Tanzania and one in Kenya. 97 species of vertebrate animal are confined to the Eastern Arc Mountains, split as follows: 10 mammal, 20 bird, 29 reptile and 38 amphibian species. In addition, another 71 species are only found in the Eastern Arc and other nearby forest habitats. Botanical experts have identified at least 68 endemic tree species and hundreds of species of endemic shrubs and herbs, with the total number of endemics likely to reach 1,500 species. The Uluguru mountains alone has more than 135 plant species that are confined to that single mountain block.
Seventy two of the endemic or near-endemic vertebrates are threatened by extinction (8 Critical, 27 Endangered, 36 Vulnerable), with an additional seven wide ranging threatened species being present. This is one of the highest concentrations of threatened species in the world and shows that the Eastern Arc is one of the places where species could disappear from the face of the earth in coming years. Indeed one species, the Kihansi spray toad, seems to be on the edge of extinction in the wild.
A new species of large monkey- a mangabey - was described in 2005 from the Udzungwa Mountains and the Southern Highlands further south. In addition, a new species of shrew was described during 2005 from the highest parts of the Udzungwa mountain forest: and three new bird species have been named from various mountains in the past five years, along with five new species of amphibian.
The eastern Miombo woodlands are composed of grasslands and dominated by trees belonging to the legume sub-family Caesalpinioideae, such as Brachystegia, Julbernardia and Isoberlinia. This dry miombo has a canopy of less than 15 m in height with annual rainfall less than 1000mm. Within the Coastal East Africa region, there is an estimated 1,000 plant species, while the entire ecoregion is home to over 8,500 plant species. The Ruvuma Landscape of southern Tanzania and northern Mozambique consists of miombo woodlands and is home to the largest remaining unfragmented range for the threatened African wild dog, lion, leopard, eland, roan, black rhino and savanna elephants in East and Southern Africa.Many migratory bird populations rely on the Tana River Delta and wetlands in Kenya as stopover and wintering habitat.
The Coastal East Africa area also provides habitat for threatened shorebirds and seabirds, including the sooty tern, the masked booby, the greater crested tern, and the brown noddy. The Kiunga Marine National Reserve in Kenya supports the world's largest breeding colony of roseate terns.
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