Northwestern thorn scrub forests
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The Northwestern thorn scrub forests are a xeric shrubland ecoregion of Pakistan and northwestern India. The ecoregion encircles the Thar Desert and Indus Valley Desert ecoregions. It includes the western half of Gujarat (excluding the mountain of Girnar), and extending through Rajasthan, where it is bounded on the southeast by the Aravalli Range. It encompasses most of Haryana and Punjab states of India as well as the Jammu region of Jammu and Kashmir, extending to the foothills of the Himalayas. In Pakistan, the ecoregion covers most of Punjab province, extending into easternmost Northwest Frontier and Baluchistan provinces and western Sind.
The Northwestern thorn scrub forests are thought to be tropical dry forests that were degraded through intensive agriculture and grazing into stunted and open thorn scrub, dominated by species such as Acacia senegal and A. leucophloea, as well as Prosopis cineraria, Capparis zeylandica, and species of Salvadora, Gymnosporia, Grewia, and Gardenia. Over 90% of the ecoregion has been converted to human use, and the remaining habitat is highly fragmented.
This ecoregion, together with the Thar Desert and Indus Valley Desert ecoregions, form Udvardy's "Thar Desert" Biogeographic province.
