The Lara-Falcón dry forests (NT0219) is an ecoregion that extends inland from the
Caribbean coast of northwestern Venezuela.
To the east and west the dry forests of the hilly region transition into xeric shrublands.
There are several endemic bird species including the vulnerable
yellow-shouldered amazon
The yellow-shouldered amazon (''Amazona barbadensis''), also known as the yellow-shouldered parrot, is a parrot of the genus ''amazon parrot, Amazona'' that is found in the arid areas of northern Venezuela, the Venezuelan islands of Isla Margarit ...
, in demand as a pet.
There are few protected areas.
Despite the relatively infertile soils, a large part of the ecoregion has been converted to farmland or pasturage.
Geography
Location
The Lara-Falcón dry forests ecoregion is in parts of the states of
Lara
Lara may refer to:
Places
* Lara (state), a state in Venezuela
*Electoral district of Lara, an electoral district in Victoria, Australia
* Lara, Antalya, an urban district in Turkey
* Lara, Victoria, a township in Australia
* Lara de los In ...
and
Falcón
)
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, map_caption = Location within Venezuela
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, pushpin_map_alt =
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.
It has an area of .
It is south of the
Paraguaná Peninsula
The Paraguaná Peninsula () is a peninsula in Venezuela, situated in the north of Falcón State, and comprises the municipalities of Carirubana, Los Taques and Falcón. The island of Aruba lies to the north. Bonaire and Curaçao are slightly ...
and north of the
Venezuelan Andes
The Venezuelan Andes (Spanish: ''Andes Venezolanos'') also simply known as the Andes (Spanish: ''Los Andes'') in Venezuela, are a mountain system that form the northernmost extension of the Andes. They are fully identified, both by their geologi ...
to the east of
Lake Maracaibo.
It extends from just south of
Coro, Falcón state, to just north of
Barquisimeto
Barquisimeto (; guc, Watkisimeeta) is a city in Venezuela. It is the capital of the state of Lara and head of Iribarren Municipality. It is an important urban, industrial, commercial and transportation center of the country, recognized as the f ...
, Lara state.
The ecoregion extends to the Caribbean sea in the northeast, with patches of
Amazon-Orinoco-Southern Caribbean mangroves along some sections of the shore.
To the southeast it transitions into the
La Costa xeric shrublands
The La Costa xeric shrublands (NT1309) is an ecoregion in Venezuela that stretches along the Caribbean coast.
The dry scrub and savanna has been subject to modification since the 16th century by European colonists who replaced it by a patchwork of ...
and a section of the
Cordillera de la Costa montane forests
The Cordillera de la Costa montane forests is a montane ecoregion of the tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome, in the Venezuelan Coastal Range (''Cordillera de la Costa'') on the Caribbean Sea in northern Venezuela.
Location
The ...
.
To the south, west and northwest it gives way to
Paraguana xeric scrub.
Terrain
The Lara-Falcón dry forests ecoregion contains the Sierra de San Luis, the most eastern part of the
Sierra de Falcón The Sierra de Falcón consists of a series of mountains located in Venezuela's Falcón State of relatively low altitude, mostly formed by the Sierra de San Luis and the Sierra de Churuguara. They have an east–west orientation and are part of the ...
.
In the south it reaches the
Sierra de Aroa
Sierra (Spanish for "mountain range" and "saw", from Latin '' serra'') may refer to the following:
Places Mountains and mountain ranges
* Sierra de Juárez, a mountain range in Baja California, Mexico
* Sierra de las Nieves, a mountain range i ...
.
The mountains, valleys and plains have elevations of above sea level.
There are varied microclimates at different elevations.
Soils are relatively infertile
ultisol
Ultisols, commonly known as red clay soils, are one of twelve soil orders in the United States Department of Agriculture soil taxonomy. The word "Ultisol" is derived from "ultimate", because Ultisols were seen as the ultimate product of continu ...
s and
oxisol
Oxisols are a soil order in USDA soil taxonomy, best known for their occurrence in tropical rain forest within 25 degrees north and south of the Equator. In the World Reference Base for Soil Resources (WRB), they belong mainly to the ferralsols, ...
s.
Major rivers include the
Hueque,
Tocuyo and
Aroa
''Aroa'' is a genus of moths in the subfamily Lymantriinae first described by Francis Walker (entomologist), Francis Walker in 1855. Species are distributed in South Africa, China, throughout India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Java.
Description
They ...
.
Climate
Mean temperatures is .
Annual rainfall is .
At a sample location at coordinates the
Köppen climate classification
The Köppen climate classification is one of the most widely used climate classification systems. It was first published by German-Russian climatologist Wladimir Köppen (1846–1940) in 1884, with several later modifications by Köppen, notabl ...
is "Aw": equatorial, winter dry.
Mean temperatures at this location range from in January to in September.
Total annual rainfall varies considerably from one year to another, but averages about .
Monthly rainfall varies from in February to in July.
Ecology
The Lara-Falcón dry forests ecoregion is in the
neotropical
The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone.
Definition
In bioge ...
realm, in the
tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests
The tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forest is a habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature and is located at tropical and subtropical latitudes. Though these forests occur in climates that are warm year-round, and may receive ...
biome.
At a global level, tropical dry forests are the third most critically endangered biome. 48.5% of the biome has been cleared and only 7.6% is protected.
Flora
![Parque Nacional Cueva de la Quebrada del Toro](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Parque_Nacional_Cueva_de_la_Quebrada_del_Toro.jpg)
The vegetation is adapted to the dry climate and includes dense deciduous dry forest and thorn forest with
cacti,
mesquite
Mesquite is a common name for several plants in the genus '' Prosopis'', which contains over 40 species of small leguminous trees. They are native to dry areas in the Americas.
They have extremely long roots to seek water from very far under gr ...
trees and spiny shrubs.
Small patches of seasonal evergreen woodland are found along rivers and on hilltops.
The varied microclimates support a variety of types of vegetation including seasonal evergreen lowland forest in the southeast, similar to that found in the
Cordillera de la Costa montane forests
The Cordillera de la Costa montane forests is a montane ecoregion of the tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome, in the Venezuelan Coastal Range (''Cordillera de la Costa'') on the Caribbean Sea in northern Venezuela.
Location
The ...
, dry deciduous lowland forest and submontane forest.
The upper slopes and summits of the Sierra San Luis contain dense, medium height cloud forests, with two strata of trees and a dense understory.
The dry deciduous forests of the Lara–Falcon hills are fairly open, high, and have dense undergrowth.
The main flora are ''
Handroanthus billbergii
''Handroanthus'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae.David J. Mabberley. 2008. ''Mabberley's Plant-Book'' third edition (2008). Cambridge University Press: UK. It consists of 30 species of trees, known in Latin America by ...
'', ''
Roseodendron chryseum
''Roseodendron'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae.David J. Mabberley. 2008. ''Mabberley's Plant-Book'' third edition (2008). Cambridge University Press: UK. It consists of two species, '' Roseodendron donnell-smithii'' a ...
'' (araguán), ''
Bulnesia arborea
''Bulnesia arborea'' is a species of flowering plant in the creosote subfamily (Larreoideae) of family Zygophyllaceae. It is native to Colombia and Venezuela. Related to the true ''lignum vitae'' trees (''Guaiacum''), it is known as Maracaibo ' ...
'' (Maracaibo lignum vitae), ''
Bourreria cumanensis
''Bourreria'' is a genus of flowering plants in the borage family, Boraginaceae. Members of the genus are commonly known as strongbark or strongback. The generic name was chosen by Patrick Browne to honour German pharmacist Johann Ambrosius Beur ...
'', ''
Caesalpinia coriaria
''Libidibia coriaria'', synonym ''Caesalpinia coriaria'', is a leguminous tree or large shrub native to the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, and northern and western South America. Common names include divi-divi, cascalote, guaracabuya, guata ...
'' (divi-divi), ''
Pereskia guamacho
''Pereskia'' is a small genus of about four species of cacti that do not look much like other types of cacti, having substantial leaves and non-succulent stems. The genus is named after Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, a 16th-century French bota ...
'' (leafy cactus) and ''
Prosopis juliflora
''Prosopis juliflora'' ( es, bayahonda blanca, Cuji Venezuela, Trupillo Colombia, Aippia Wayuunaiki and long-thorn kiawe in Hawaii) is a shrub or small tree in the family Fabaceae, a kind of mesquite. It is native to Mexico, South America and th ...
'' (mesquite).
The only endemic plant is ''
Apoplanesia cryptantha'' (family
Fabaceae), found in the eastern deciduous forests.
Other plant species in the deciduous forests include ''
Acanthocereus colombianus'' (cactus), ''
Capparis linearis'', ''
Capparis odoratissima
''Capparis'' is a flowering plant genus, comprising around 250 species in the family Capparaceae which is included in the Brassicaceae in the unrevised APG II system. These plants are shrubs or lianas and are collectively known as caper shrubs o ...
'', ''
Capparis tenuisiliqua'', ''
Castela erecta
''Castela'' is a genus of thorny shrubs and small trees in the family Simaroubaceae. Members of the genus are native to the Americas, especially the tropical regions. The generic name honours the French naturalist René Richard Louis Castel. '' ...
'', ''
Cercidium praecox'', ''
Croton rhamnifolius'', ''
Cynophalla hastata
''Cynophalla hastata'' is a plant species in the genus '' Cynophalla''.
References
External links
*
hastata
{{Brassicales-stub ...
'', ''
Cynophalla flexuosa'', ''
Ipomoea carnea
''Ipomoea carnea'', the pink morning glory, is a species of morning glory that grows as a bush. This flowering plant has heart-shaped leaves that are a rich green and long. It can be easily grown from seeds. These seeds are toxic and it can be h ...
'' (pink morning glory), ''
Jatropha gossypiifolia'' (bellyache bush), ''
Libidibia coriaria
''Libidibia coriaria'', synonym ''Caesalpinia coriaria'', is a leguminous tree or large shrub native to the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico, and northern and western South America. Common names include divi-divi, cascalote, guaracabuya, gu ...
'', ''
Machaerium robiniaefolium'', ''
Morisonia americana'', ''
Pachira quinata
''Pachira quinata'', commonly known as pochote, is a species of flowering tree in the mallow family, Malvaceae. It inhabits dry forests in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras Panama, Venezuela
Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Rep ...
'', ''
Pereskia colombiana'', ''
Piptadenia flava'', ''
Pithecellobium dulce'', ''
Pithecellobium unguis-cati'', ''
Poponax tortuosa'', ''
Randia armata
''Randia'' can refer to :
* ''Randia'' (bird), a monotypic genus of bird containing a single species, ''Randia pseudozosterops'', also known as Rand's warbler
* ''Randia'' (plant), a genus of plants of the family Rubiaceae
* r/India, a subreddi ...
'', ''
Stenocereus griseus'' (dagger cactus), ''
Talisia olivaeformis'', ''
Vachellia farnesiana
''Vachellia farnesiana'', also known as ''Acacia farnesiana'', and previously ''Mimosa farnesiana'', commonly known as sweet acacia, huisache, or needle bush, is a species of shrub or small tree in the legume family, Fabaceae. Its flowers are u ...
'' (sweet acacia) and species of the genera ''
Cassia'', ''
Eugenia
''Eugenia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the myrtle family Myrtaceae. It has a worldwide, although highly uneven, distribution in tropical and subtropical regions. The bulk of the approximately 1,100 species occur in the New World tropics, ...
'', ''
Guapira
''Guapira'' is a genus of Neotropical shrubs in four o'clock family.[Hyptis
''Hyptis'' is a genus of flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae. These plants, known commonly as bushmints, are widespread in tropical North and South America, as well as parts of West Africa. There are 150 species, which may be annual or perenn ...]
'', ''
Lonchocarpus
''Lonchocarpus'' is a plant genus in the legume family ( Fabaceae). The species are called lancepods due to their fruit resembling an ornate lance tip or a few beads on a string.
''Cubé'' resin is produced from the roots of '' L. urucu'' an ...
'', ''
Opuntia'', ''
Platymiscium'' and ''
Zanthoxylum
''Zanthoxylum'' is a genus of about 250 species of deciduous and evergreen trees, shrubs and climbers in the family Rutaceae that are native to warm temperate and subtropical areas worldwide. It is the type genus of the tribe Zanthoxyleae in ...
''.
Fauna
The only endemic mammal is the
Guajira mouse opossum (''Marmosa xerophila''), found in this and other dry forest ecoregions in the north of Venezuela and Colombia.
It is mostly found in the deciduous forest.
There are many endemic birds in the arid lowland area including the
yellow-shouldered amazon
The yellow-shouldered amazon (''Amazona barbadensis''), also known as the yellow-shouldered parrot, is a parrot of the genus ''amazon parrot, Amazona'' that is found in the arid areas of northern Venezuela, the Venezuelan islands of Isla Margarit ...
(''Amazona barbadensis''),
Maracaibo tody-flycatcher (''Todirostrum viridanum''),
pygmy palm swift (''Tachornis furcata''),
buffy hummingbird (''Leucippus fallax''),
chestnut piculet (''Picumnus cinnamomeus''),
white-whiskered spinetail
The white-whiskered spinetail (''Synallaxis candei'') is a species of bird in the family Furnariidae. It is found in Colombia and Venezuela. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests and subtropical or tropical dry shrubland ...
(''Synallaxis candei''),
black-backed antshrike
The black-backed antshrike (''Thamnophilus melanonotus'') is a species of bird in the family Thamnophilidae. It is found in Colombia and Venezuela, where its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical dry forests.
The black-backed antshrike wa ...
(''Thamnophilus melanonotus''),
slender-billed inezia (''Inezia tenuirostris''),
Tocuyo sparrow
The Tocuyo sparrow (''Arremonops tocuyensis'') is a species of bird in the family Passerellidae that is found in Colombia and cities like Tocuyo and Lara of Venezuela. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forest and subtropical ...
(''Arremonops tocuyensis'') and
vermilion cardinal
The vermilion cardinal (''Cardinalis phoeniceus'') is a species of bird in the family Cardinalidae, the cardinals or cardinal grosbeaks. It is found in Colombia and Venezuela.
Taxonomy and systematics
The vermilion cardinal is monotypic. It ...
(''Cardinalis phoeniceus'').
Endangered birds include the
plain-flanked rail
The plain-flanked rail (''Rallus wetmorei'') is an Endangered species of bird in subfamily Rallinae of family Rallidae, the rails, gallinules, and coots. It is endemic to Venezuela.HBW and BirdLife International (2021) Handbook of the Birds of ...
(''Rallus wetmorei'') and the
red siskin (''Spinus cucullatus'').
Status
The
World Wildlife Fund
The World Wide Fund for Nature Inc. (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization founded in 1961 that works in the field of wilderness preservation and the reduction of human impact on the environment. It was formerly named the Wo ...
gives the ecoregion the status of "Critical/Endangered".
The habitat has badly damaged by farming and grazing, particularly the north and center of the region.
The vulnerable yellow-shouldered amazon is illegally collected for sale as a pet.
As of 2002 of the in the ecoregion, or 34.8% had natural cover or extractive land use, while the remainder had been converted to agricultural land, including pasturage.
A 2006 book stated that of the of the ecoregion, 64.6% of the habitat had been transformed by human activity.
Only 8.1% or was protected.
The
Cueva de la Quebrada del Toro National Park protects the portion of the ecoregion in the Sierra de Falcón, including a dramatic cave.
The
Juan Crisóstomo Falcón National Park
The Juan Crisostomo Falcón National Park ( es, Parque nacional Juan Crisóstomo Falcón), also known as the Sierra de San Luis, is in the southern part of the Falcón state in Venezuela. It has an area of covering the municipalities of Bolív ...
also protects part of the region.
Notes
Sources
*
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*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lara-Falcón dry forests
Neotropical dry broadleaf forests
Ecoregions of Venezuela
Deserts and xeric shrublands