EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Gallery Forest Landscape, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Africa

Explanation:  What causes the strange shapes of these forest stands in central tropical Africa?  Why don't the trees grow across all of the landscape here?

We are flying over the south central landscapes of the vast Congo River Basin in tropical central Africa.  Here, the forests grow dense and lush, but only along stream and river courses and in lower swampy areas.  Just a few feet higher, grasslands dominate, forming a striking pattern of giant fingers of "gallery forests" and intermixed savannas. 

This creates a landscape with high diversity of vegetation structure, forest edges, grassland resources, and many plant and animal species.   Perhaps it was even in an environment such as this that ancestors to Old World monkeys and hominids first ventured down from their arboreal realm to explore the savannas, perching precariously on their hind limbs for the first time to watch for predators or to seek prey.  

Gallery forest - savanna landscape of the Congo Basin.
The forest patches occupy the lower, wet, swampy areas.
Note the footpaths and recently burned patches used
for shifting cultivation by the local people.