Central Indo-Pacific

The Central Indo-Pacific is a biogeographic region of Earth's seas, comprising the tropical waters of the western Pacific Ocean, the eastern Indian Ocean, and the connecting seas.

The Central Indo-Pacific is a part of the larger Indo-Pacific, which includes the tropical Indian Ocean, the western and central tropical Pacific Ocean, and the seas connecting the two in the general area of Indonesia. The Central Indo-Pacific may be classified as a marine realm, one of the great biogeographic divisions of the world's ocean basins, or as a subrealm of the Indo-Pacific.^[1]

The Central Indo-Pacific realm covers eastern shores of the tropical Indian Ocean, including most of the Indian Ocean coast of the Indonesian archipelago, the northern Australian coast, and the

Marianas Islands, New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Tonga, and Lord Howe Island.^[1]

It is bounded on the west by the Western Indo-Pacific, with the transition at the Strait of Malacca and in southern Sumatra. The Central Indo-Pacific includes the seas surrounding the northern half of Australia, while the Temperate Australasia marine realm includes the seas surrounding the southern half of Australia. The boundaries between those two marine realms lie in Western Australia and southern Queensland. The Eastern Indo-Pacific lies to the east, extending across most of tropical Polynesia. To the north, the Taiwan Strait forms the boundary with the Temperate Northern Pacific, which also includes the larger Japanese islands.^[1]

The Central Indo-Pacific includes the

New Caledonia Barrier Reef

.

Subdivisions

The Central Indo-Pacific is further subdivided into marine provinces, and the marine provinces divided into marine ecoregions:^[1]

South China Sea

Gulf of Tonkin
Southern China
South China Sea Oceanic Islands

Sunda Shelf

Gulf of Thailand
Southern Vietnam
Sunda Shelf/Java Sea
Malacca Strait

Java Transitional

Southern Java
Cocos-Keeling/Christmas Island

South Kuroshio

South Kuroshio

Tropical Northwestern Pacific

Ogasawara Islands
Mariana Islands
East Caroline Islands
West Caroline Islands

Western Coral Triangle

Palawan/North Borneo
Eastern Philippines
Sulawesi Sea/Makassar Strait
Halmahera
Papua
Banda Sea
Lesser Sunda
Northeast Sulawesi

Eastern Coral Triangle

Bismarck Sea
Solomon Archipelago
Solomon Sea
Southeast Papua New Guinea

Sahul Shelf

Gulf of Papua
Arafura Sea
Arnhem Coast to Gulf of Carpentaria
Bonaparte Coast

Northeast Australian Shelf

Torres Strait and Northern Great Barrier Reef
Central and Southern Great Barrier Reef

Northwest Australian Shelf

Exmouth to Broome
Ningaloo

Tropical Southwestern Pacific

Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands

Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Spalding, Mark D., Helen E. Fox, Gerald R. Allen, Nick Davidson et al. "Marine Ecoregions of the World: A Bioregionalization of Coastal and Shelf Areas". Bioscience Vol. 57 No. 7, July/August 2007, pp. 573–583. [1]
^ Briggs, John C. and Brian W. Bowen (2013) "Marine shelf habitat: biogeography and evolution". Journal of Biogeography, June 2013, Vol. 40, No. 6 (June 2013), pp. 1023-1035. [2]

[meow-1] Spalding, Mark D., Helen E. Fox, Gerald R. Allen, Nick Davidson et al. "Marine Ecoregions of the World: A Bioregionalization of Coastal and Shelf Areas". Bioscience Vol. 57 No. 7, July/August 2007, pp. 573–583. [1]

[2] Briggs, John C. and Brian W. Bowen (2013) "Marine shelf habitat: biogeography and evolution". Journal of Biogeography, June 2013, Vol. 40, No. 6 (June 2013), pp. 1023-1035. [2]

[1]