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Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

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Puerto Rican dry forests

Bioma

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

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Reino biogeográfico

Neotropic

Bosque seco costero en un promontorio calizo sobre el mar en Guanica, Puerto Rico.

Foto de la región - Oquendo from Freeport, NY / Wikimedia Commons - CC BY 2.0; attribution required.

Puerto Rican dry forests

Los bosques secos de Puerto Rico se extienden a lo largo de la costa centro-sur y suroeste de Puerto Rico y a través de las islas adyacentes de Mona, Vieques, Culebra, Desecheo y Caja de Muertos, ocupando las tierras bajas más secas de la isla, situadas a sotavento de la lluvia. El bosque está formado por árboles bajos, a menudo de varios troncos, con una flora dominada por las familias Rubiaceae, Euphorbiaceae y Myrtaceae y especies características como el guayacán (Guaiacum), la ceiba (Ceiba pentandra) y el alelí blanco (Plumeria alba). El clima es estacionalmente seco, con una única estación lluviosa, precipitaciones anuales moderadas de aproximadamente 600 a 1.000 milímetros y temperaturas cálidas cercanas a los 31 grados Celsius en verano y unos 21 grados en invierno. Las plantas hacen frente a la sequía mediante hojas caducas, recubrimientos cerosos y tejidos de almacenamiento de agua. Aunque está amenazada a nivel mundial por la deforestación, el fuego y los animales introducidos, la ecorregión sigue siendo un bastión de endemismos, que alberga la iguana terrestre de Mona, el amenazado guabairo puertorriqueño y varios lagartos anolis endémicos, con su sector mejor conservado protegido en el Bosque Estatal y Reserva de la Biosfera de Guánica. Para los jardineros de climas cálidos y secos, plantas ornamentales nativas como Plumeria y Ceiba muestran cómo esta flora combina la tolerancia a la sequía con una forma llamativa.

RESOLVE 543

Neotropic

492 sq mi

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

Tipo de paisaje

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

Región vegetal

Neotropic

Huella de la región

492 sq mi

Presión sobre el hábitat

Nature Could Recover (Dinerstein NNH 3)

Origen y cuidado

Patrocinado

Plantas nativas

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Suministros de jardinería

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Usa esto como el patrón general de plantación para la región: Bosques tropicales que atraviesan una estación seca marcada, durante la cual muchos árboles pierden sus hojas para conservar agua. Albergan una alta biodiversidad, pero se cuentan entre los hábitats tropicales más amenazados, sensibles al fuego y al desmonte para la agricultura. Para las decisiones de jardín, acota según las restricciones de luz, agua, suelo y tamaño maduro de tu sitio.

°C

°F

Plantas que pueden con esta región

Plotwright aún no tiene plantas con buen ajuste climático para esta región. A medida que el catálogo crezca en esta banda climática, aparecerán sugerencias aquí.

Regiones de plantación similares

Explora otras regiones del mismo bioma. Sus listas de plantas pueden sugerir especies y combinaciones que vale la pena comparar.

Dosel de bosque tropical cerca de Villavicencio, Meta, Colombia.

RESOLVE 520 - Neotropic

Apure-Villavicencio dry forests

The Apure-Villavicencio dry forests stretch along the eastern foot of the Andes' eastern cordillera, spanning the Venezuelan states of Portuguesa, Barinas and Apure and the Colombian departments of Arauca, Casanare and Meta. This is a transitional ecoregion, a patchwork of premontane, gallery and deciduous dry forest grading into savanna where the Andean montane forests give way to the lowland Llanos grasslands. Characteristic woody plants include mesquite (Prosopis juliflora), palo verde (Cercidium praecox), kapok (Ceiba pentandra), yellow mombin (Spondias mombin), and palms such as the moriche (Mauritia flexuosa) and macaúba (Acrocomia aculeata). Its climate is equatorial with a pronounced dry winter (Köppen Aw), with temperatures ranging from about 19 to 33 degrees Celsius. The forests have been severely degraded by deforestation, farming and ranching, leaving poorly protected remnants that the World Wildlife Fund rates as Vulnerable, yet they still shelter the giant anteater, Geoffroy's spider monkey, and the flagship Colombian four-eyed frog. Gardeners may recognize several natives here as ornamentals, including the stately kapok tree and the moriche and macaúba palms.

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

RESOLVE 521 - Neotropic

Bajío dry forests

The Bajío dry forests cover the southwestern Mexican Plateau in west-central Mexico, spanning the states of Jalisco, Guanajuato, and Michoacán across the Lerma River basin and the lake country around Chapala, Cuitzeo, and Pátzcuaro. Set in valleys between roughly 1,000 and 2,000 meters on shallow, rocky, well-drained volcanic and limestone soils, the region was historically dry deciduous forest whose characteristic trees included copal, pochote, palo amarillo, and mauto, with thorn-scrub communities of mesquite and huamúchil. The climate is tropical subhumid, with annual rainfall around 500 to 930 millimeters and a pronounced dry season that can last up to eight months. This is one of Mexico's most developed and densely populated landscapes, and centuries of agriculture and grazing have reduced the forest to small pockets now dominated by thorn scrub and subtropical matorral, leaving the ecoregion classed as critical or endangered with only about 7.5 percent in protected areas. Gardeners working in comparably dry, seasonal climates may recognize natives of this region in drought-adapted, deciduous trees such as mesquite and copal.

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

RESOLVE 522 - Neotropic

Balsas dry forests

The Balsas dry forests occupy the basin of the Balsas River in western and central Mexico, spreading across the states of Michoacan, Guerrero, Morelos, Mexico, Puebla, and Oaxaca. This tropical dry broadleaf ecoregion is a deciduous and thorn forest dominated by Bursera trees, alongside the legume Haematoxylum brasiletto and abundant columnar cacti such as Pachycereus and Cephalocereus. The climate is tropical and subhumid, with seasonal rainfall and a severe dry season that can last up to eight months. The forests are a renowned center of plant endemism and speciation, especially for Bursera, with roughly half of the region's Bursera species found nowhere else, and they shelter the near-endemic Balsas screech-owl, though only about a tenth of the ecoregion lies within protected areas. For drought-tolerant or xeric plantings, the native Bursera (the source of copal incense) and the dyewood Haematoxylum brasiletto are ornamental genera that evolved here.

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

RESOLVE 523 - Neotropic

Bolivian montane dry forests

The Bolivian montane dry forests occupy the eastern flank of the Andes in south-central Bolivia, barely reaching into northwest Argentina, where they form a transitional band between the moister Yungas and high puna grasslands above and the lowland Chaco scrub below. Across rugged terrain of cliffs, steep hillsides, and river valleys, the vegetation is a xeric mosaic of dry slopes studded with scattered shrubs and columnar cacti, seasonal dry forest, and gallery forest along watercourses, with characteristic woody plants including Vachellia caven, hopseed bush (Dodonaea viscosa), Prosopis, and quebracho hardwoods such as Aspidosperma quebracho-blanco and Schinopsis. The climate is strongly seasonal and semi-arid, pairing a pronounced dry winter with summer rains. The World Wildlife Fund rates the ecoregion Critical/Endangered, as only about six percent of its original habitat remains amid fragmentation from urban sprawl, agriculture, overhunting, and fuelwood cutting; it nonetheless shelters numerous endemic birds, among them the Bolivian blackbird, Cochabamba mountain finch, and the endangered red-fronted macaw, with the torrent duck as a flagship species. For gardeners in dry, mild-winter climates, several of its natives, such as the ornamental hopseed bush and the fragrant-flowered Vachellia caven, are familiar landscape plants.

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

RESOLVE 524 - Neotropic

Brazilian Atlantic dry forests

The Brazilian Atlantic dry forests form a tropical dry forest ecoregion of eastern Brazil, stretching across northern Minas Gerais, Bahia, and Piauí along the São Francisco River depression, where they sit between the Cerrado savannas of central Brazil and the Caatinga dry shrublands of the northeast. The vegetation is deciduous to semi-deciduous forest reaching roughly 25 to 30 meters tall, characterized by trees such as the bottle-trunked barriguda (Cavanillesia arborea), Brazilian cedarwood, and Tabebuia species. The climate is tropical with a pronounced dry season of about five months and annual rainfall of 850 to 1,000 mm, on eutrophic soils derived from Bambuí limestone. Conservation is a serious concern: around 70 percent of the native forest has been cleared for agriculture and charcoal production tied to Brazil's steel and pig-iron industries, and the region is home to the critically endangered Barbara Brown's titi as well as threatened birds like the hyacinth macaw. For gardeners, the native Tabebuia trumpet trees are familiar ornamental flowering trees rooted in this drought-adapted flora.

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

RESOLVE 525 - Neotropic

Caatinga

The Caatinga is a semi-arid ecoregion covering the drier interior of northeastern Brazil, stretching across states including Piauí, Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Alagoas, Sergipe, Bahia, and parts of Minas Gerais, and it ranks as the largest dry forest region in South America. Its vegetation is a heterogeneous xeric shrubland and thorn forest of small, drought-deciduous thorny trees, with a ground layer rich in cacti and succulents such as the mandacaru (Cereus jamacaru) and prickly pears (Opuntia), alongside carnaúba palms and fruit-bearing trees like umbú. The climate is hot and dry, with six to eleven dry months a year and average annual rainfall ranging from about 250 to 1,000 millimeters. Despite this aridity, the Caatinga harbors a unique biota with many endemic species and is the home of its flagship bird, the Spix's macaw (Cyanopsitta spixii), though less than seven percent of the ecoregion is currently protected. For gardeners in hot, dry climates, its native cacti such as Opuntia and Cereus are familiar ornamental and edible-fruit genera.

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

Hasta dónde llega esta ecorregión

Los países, estados de EE. UU. y provincias de Canadá que toca esta ecorregión, a partir de un cruce espacial de su polígono RESOLVE con los límites de Natural Earth.

Países

Puerto Rico

Educator packet

Region packet

Puerto Rican dry forests educator packet

Los bosques secos de Puerto Rico se extienden a lo largo de la costa centro-sur y suroeste de Puerto Rico y a través de las islas adyacentes de Mona, Vieques, Culebra, Desecheo y Caja de Muertos, ocupando las tierras bajas más secas de la isla, situadas a sotavento de la lluvia. El bosque está formado por árboles bajos, a menudo de varios troncos, con una flora dominada por las familias Rubiaceae, Euphorbiaceae y Myrtaceae y especies características como el guayacán (Guaiacum), la ceiba (Ceiba pentandra) y el alelí blanco (Plumeria alba). El clima es estacionalmente seco, con una única estación lluviosa, precipitaciones anuales moderadas de aproximadamente 600 a 1.000 milímetros y temperaturas cálidas cercanas a los 31 grados Celsius en verano y unos 21 grados en invierno. Las plantas hacen frente a la sequía mediante hojas caducas, recubrimientos cerosos y tejidos de almacenamiento de agua. Aunque está amenazada a nivel mundial por la deforestación, el fuego y los animales introducidos, la ecorregión sigue siendo un bastión de endemismos, que alberga la iguana terrestre de Mona, el amenazado guabairo puertorriqueño y varios lagartos anolis endémicos, con su sector mejor conservado protegido en el Bosque Estatal y Reserva de la Biosfera de Guánica. Para los jardineros de climas cálidos y secos, plantas ornamentales nativas como Plumeria y Ceiba muestran cómo esta flora combina la tolerancia a la sequía con una forma llamativa.

Realm

Neotropic

Dominant biome

Tropical & Subtropical Dry Broadleaf Forests

Approximate area

492 square miles

States / provinces

Not recorded

Climate descriptor

Not recorded

Classroom prompts

- Which climate and biome facts explain why this region supports its characteristic plants?

- How do native-plant and wildlife-support claims differ from a species-presence claim?

- Which source-backed facts would you cite before using this region in a classroom map activity?

Use the Sources & citations section below for page citation styles and region source links.

Fuentes y citas

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Plotwright. (n.d.). Puerto Rican dry forests (Puerto Rican dry forests). Retrieved 2026, August 20, from https://plotwright.com/regions/resolve-543

Fuentes para esta región

Esta página cita primero a Plotwright por la vista compilada y luego enumera las páginas de fuentes del marco, el clima y la edición originales para que los lectores puedan citar el material original directamente.

RESOLVE 2017 Terrestrial Ecoregions (Dinerstein et al.)

Marco principal de ecorregiones

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