An overview of forest biomes and ecoregions of Central America

Central America is situated between the Nearctic and the Neotropical biogeographic realms, which have produced conditions for relatively high levels of biological diversity, with important ecoregions, ecosystems, endemism, and species richness. The Central America región comprises El Salvador, Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, and it has been identified as part of one of the planet's richest and most highly threatened biodiversity regions, making it one of the world's top 25 biodiversity conservation hot spots. Considering species diversity and endemism, Central America is the world's second ranking priority hot spot in terms of plant and animal endemism, and fifth among all hot spots (Myers et al. 2000; Conservation International 2011). This chapter describes the terrestrial ecoregions of Central America and its nested biomes based on the analysis framework proposed by Dinerstein et al. (1995) for setting priorities of conservation. Ecoregions provide a conceptual framework for the identification of representative habitats and serves as a tool to compare areas with different biodiversity features, status of their natural hábitats and degree of protection (Olson et al. 2001). The description of their biotic characteristics, landscape context, main threats to loss of biodiversity and degradation caused by human activities and conservation status is based on the available literature but also on spatial analysis at regional scale.

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	59116 Corrales Chaves, Lenin CATIE, Turrialba, Costa Rica, 50498 Bouroncle Seoane, Claudia CATIE, Turrialba, Costa Rica, 132945 Zamora Pereira, Juan Carlos CATIE, Turrialba, Costa Rica
Format:	Texto biblioteca
Language:	eng
Published:	Reino Unido Routledge 2015
Subjects:	MEDIO AMBIENTE, BIODIVERSIDAD, CONSERVACION DE LA DIVERSIDAD BIOLOGICA, AGRICULTURA, BIOMA, ECOSISTEMA, HABITAT, CONSERVACION DE LA NATURALEZA, CARACTERISTICAS DEL SITIO, CAMBIO CLIMÁTICO, UTILIZACION DE LA TIERRA,
Online Access:	https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280004414_An_overview_of_forest_biomes_and_ecoregions_of_Central_America http://hdl.handle.net/11554/8256
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