The Sinú Valley dry forests (NT0229) is an ecoregion in the north of Colombia.

Geography

Location

The Sinú Valley is an area of . located within the zone of parallel, north-northeast trending hills that lies between the low-point Magdalena and the Gulf of Urabá in Northwestern Colombia. In the north, the ecoregion surrounds the

Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (English: ''Snow-Covered Mountain Range of Saint Martha'') is an isolated mountain range in northern Colombia, separate from the Andes range that runs through the north of the country. Reaching an elevation of ...

and the

Santa Marta montane forests The Santa Marta montane forests (NT0159) is an ecoregion in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a massif on the Caribbean coast of northern Colombia. The ecoregion covers altitudes from near sea level up to around , where it gives way to Santa Marta ...

ecoregion. To the north it transitions into patches of the Guajira–Barranquilla xeric scrub ecoregion, and into a section of Amazon–Orinoco–Southern Caribbean mangroves along the coast. To the southeast it transitions into the

Cordillera Oriental montane forests The Cordillera Oriental montane forests (NT0118) is an ecoregion in Venezuela and Colombia along the east slopes of the eastern cordillera of the Andes. The extensive region of submontane and montane forests includes distinctive flora and fauna in ...

ecoregion and in the south meets the

Magdalena Valley montane forests The Magdalena Valley montane forests (NT0136) is an ecoregion in the Andes mountains of central Colombia. Geography Location The ecoregion covers the higher land on both sides of the valley of the Magdalena River in the Colombian Andes. The ri ...

ecoregion. To the southwest it transitions into the Magdalena–Urabá moist forests ecoregion.

Climate

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 "Tropical wet and dry or savanna (Aw)". Mean temperatures range from in October to in March and April. Total annual rainfall is about . There is a dry season with little rainfall from December to March. The rest of months lack a strict pattern of rainfall, except for the peak of October which has a rainfall mean that is very high compared to the rest of the year. Monthly rainfall ranges from in December to in October.

Ecology

The 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.

Fauna

Endangered mammals include black-headed spider monkey (''Ateles fusciceps''), Geoffroy's spider monkey (''Ateles geoffroyi'') and

red-crested tree-rat The red-crested tree-rat or Santa Marta toro (''Santamartamys rufodorsalis'') is a species of tree-rat found in the monotypic genus ''Santamartamys'' in the family Echimyidae. It is nocturnal and is believed to feed on plant matter, and is mainly ...

(''Santamartamys rufodorsalis''). Endangered amphibians include yellowbelly mushroomtongue salamander ('' Bolitoglossa flaviventris''), Franklin's climbing salamander (''Bolitoglossa franklini''),

Sierra Juarez brook frog The Sierra Juarez brook frog (''Duellmanohyla ignicolor'') is a species of frog in the family Hylidae endemic to Mexico. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, subtropical or tropical moist montane forests, and ...

(''Duellmanohyla ignicolor''), greater spikethumb frog ('' Plectrohyla avia''), Guatemala spikethumb frog (''

Plectrohyla guatemalensis ''Plectrohyla guatemalensis'', also known as the Guatemala spikethumb frog, is a species of frog in the family Hylidae. It occurs in the highlands of the Sierra Madre from southeastern Chiapas, Mexico, and eastward through the central and southw ...

''), pop-eyed spikethumb frog ('' Plectrohyla lacertosa''), arcane spikethumb frog ('' Plectrohyla sagorum''), brown false brook salamander ('' Pseudoeurycea brunnata'') and Goebel's false brook salamander ('' Pseudoeurycea goebeli'').

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".

Notes and references

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Sinu Valley dry forests Neotropical dry broadleaf forests Ecoregions of Colombia