The Southern New Guinea freshwater swamp forests is a

tropical moist forest Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forest, is a subtropical and tropical forest habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature. Description TSMF is generally found in large, disco ...

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas o ...

in southern

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Australia by the wide Torr ...

. The ecoregion includes the extensive swamp forests of southern and western New Guinea.

Geography

New Guinea is home to extensive swamp forests. These forests are permanently waterlogged or seasonally inundated during the rainy season. The Southern New Guinea freshwater swamp forests extend from the western

Bird's Head Peninsula The Bird's Head Peninsula ( Indonesian: ''Kepala Burung'', nl, Vogelkop) or Doberai Peninsula (''Semenanjung Doberai''), is a large peninsula that makes up the northwest portion of the island of New Guinea, comprising the Indonesian provinces o ...

to the

Papuan Peninsula The Papuan Peninsula, also known as the Bird's Tail Peninsula, is a large peninsula in Papua New Guinea, southeast of the city of Lae, that makes up the southeastern portion of the island of New Guinea. The peninsula is the easternmost extent of t ...

in the southeast. The forests lie in the lower reaches of the rivers that drain New Guinea's highlands. The most extensive swamp forests are in the basin of the

Fly River The Fly River is the third longest river in the island of New Guinea, after the Sepik River and Mamberamo River, with a total length of and the largest by volume of discharge in Oceania, the largest in the world without a single dam in its ca ...

. The Southern New Guinea lowland rain forests and Vogelkop-Aru lowland rain forests ecoregions occupy the adjacent lowlands. Near the coast the freshwater swamp forests transition to New Guinea mangroves as the waters become brackish or salt.

Climate

The ecoregion has a humid tropical climate.

Flora

The freshwater swamp forests support diverse habitats, from open water to grass swamps of several types (dominated by ''

Leersia ''Leersia'' is a genus of plants in the grass family which includes species known generally as cutgrasses. The genus is widespread across many countries on all the inhabited continents. It was named for the German botanist Johann Daniel Leers ...

'', ''

Saccharum ''Saccharum'' is a genus of tall perennial plants of the broomsedge tribe within the grass family. The genus is widespread across tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate regions in Africa, Eurasia, Australia, the Americas, and assorted ocea ...

Phragmites ''Phragmites'' () is a genus of four species of large perennial reed grasses found in wetlands throughout temperate and tropical regions of the world. Taxonomy The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, maintained by Kew Garden in Lon ...

'', ''

Pseudoraphis ''Pseudoraphis'' is a genus of Asian and Australian plants in the grass family, commonly known as mudgrasses.Watson, L. and M. J. Dallwitz. 1992 onwards''Pseudoraphis'' Griff.The Grass Genera of the World.Melaleuca ''Melaleuca'' () is a genus of nearly 300 species of plants in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae, commonly known as paperbarks, honey-myrtles or tea-trees (although the last name is also applied to species of '' Leptospermum''). They range in size ...

''-dominated or mixed), swamp woodlands (dominated by sago palm (''Metroxylon sagu''), ''

Pandanus ''Pandanus'' is a genus of monocots with some 750 accepted species. They are palm-like, dioecious trees and shrubs native to the Old World tropics and subtropics. The greatest number of species are found in Madagascar and Malaysia. Common names ...

'', or mixed), and swamp forests dominated by '' Campnosperma, Terminalia'', or ''Melaleuca''.

Fauna

The ecoregion is home to fifty mammal species, including

marsupial Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a ...

s, bats, and murid rodents. There is one endemic mammal species, the Fly River water rat (''Leptomys signatus''). The ecoregion has 339 species of birds, including resident and migratory birds. The ecoregion's lakes and wetlands support large populations of water birds.

Protected areas

A 2017 assessment found that 8,583 km², or 9%, of the ecoregion is in protected areas. Over 80% of the ecoregion has relatively intact vegetation.Eric Dinerstein, David Olson, et al. (2017). An Ecoregion-Based Approach to Protecting Half the Terrestrial Realm, BioScience, Volume 67, Issue 6, June 2017, Pages 534–545; Supplemental material 2 table S1b

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External links

References

{{reflist Australasian ecoregions Ecoregions of Indonesia Ecoregions of New Guinea Ecoregions of Papua New Guinea Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests