Trinidad and Tobago dry forests are

tropical dry 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 ...

located primarily in western and southern parts of the island of

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

, in southern parts of the island of

Tobago Tobago () is an List of islands of Trinidad and Tobago, island and Regions and municipalities of Trinidad and Tobago, ward within the Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is located northeast of the larger island of Trini ...

and on smaller offshore islands including

Chacachacare Chacachacare is an island in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, located at 10° 41' north latitude and 61° 45' west longitude. The island is in area. It is one of the Bocas Islands, which lie in the ''Bocas del Dragón'' (''Dragons' Mouth'' ...

Monos Monos is an island in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It is one of the "Bocas Islands", which lie in the '' Bocas del Dragón'' (''Dragons' Mouth'') between Trinidad and Venezuela. It is so named as the island was once home to noisy red h ...

, Huevos,

Gaspar Grande Gaspar Grande or Gasparee is an island in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago named for Gaspar de Percín. The island is in area and lies west of Port of Spain. It is one of the "Bocas Islands", which lie in the '' Bocas del Dragón'' (''Dragon's ...

Little Tobago Little Tobago (or Bird of Paradise Island) is a small island off the northeastern coast of Tobago, and part of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. The island supports dry forest. It is an important breeding site for seabirds such as red-bille ...

and Saint Giles Island. Tropical dry forests in

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

include both deciduous and semi-evergreen forests. A recent work by Howard Nelson suggests that areas which were formerly classified as evergreen forest also fit the criteria for dry forests. The major areas of dry forest in Trinidad include the Chaguaramas peninsula in the northwest, areas along the south coast of the island, from

Cedros Cedros, Portuguese and Spanish for ''cedars'', may refer to the following places: Honduras * Cedros, Francisco Morazán, a municipality in the Department of Francisco Morazán Mexico *Cedros Island, an island in the State of Baja California Portu ...

Morne Diablo Morne is an Old-French word for a small mountain. It may refer to: * Morne a Chandelle, a village in the Sud-Est department of Haiti * Morne-à-l'Eau, a commune in Guadeloupe * Morne Bois-Pin, the fourth highest mountain in Haiti * Morne la Vigi ...

, and areas along the east coast including parts of the

Guayaguayare Guayaguayare is the southeasternmost village in Trinidad & Tobago. It lies at the southern end of the county of Mayaro. Guayaguayare (often simply called ''Guaya'') is primarily a fishing village, but it also plays a major role in the petroleum i ...

, Mayaro and Manzanilla coastline. In addition, areas along the west coast including San Fernando Hill and much of the former ''

Sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

Belt'' also would have originally supported dry forest. In Tobago much of the southwest of the island originally supported dry forests. The dominant paradigm in

phytosociology Phytosociology, also known as phytocoenology or simply plant sociology, is the study of groups of species of plant that are usually found together. Phytosociology aims to empirically describe the vegetative environment of a given territory. A speci ...

has been the work of John Stanley Beard carried out in the 1940s. His description of forest associations was physiognomically based. Many of his forest associations overlap modern ideas of dry and moist forests. Most work which seeks to classify dry forest in this country, ''e.g.'', WWF classification, underestimate the extent of dry forest in Trinidad and Tobago by restricting it to the driest category of forests that Beard came up with for Trinidad.

References

* Beard, J. S. (1944) The natural vegetation of Tobago, British West Indies. ''Ecological Monographs'' 14:135-163. * Beard, J. S. (1946) The natural vegetation of Trinidad. Oxford University Press, Oxford. * Nelson, Howard P. (2004) Tropical forest ecosystems of Trinidad: Ecological patterns and public perceptions. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Wisconsin, Madison. {{Trinidad and Tobago topics Neotropical dry broadleaf forests Ecoregions of the Caribbean * Ecoregions of Trinidad and Tobago