›

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

›

Juan Fernández Islands temperate forests

Biome

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

·

Biogeographic realm

Neotropic

Satellite view of Robinson Crusoe Island, with forested eastern uplands and a bare western ridge, Juan Fernandez, Chile.

Region photo - Wikimedia Commons / Wikimedia Commons - Public domain.

Juan Fernández Islands temperate forests

The Juan Fernández Islands temperate forests cover a small Chilean archipelago in the southeastern Pacific roughly 665 kilometers off the mainland, made up of Robinson Crusoe, Alejandro Selkirk, and Santa Clara islands. Vegetation grades by elevation from grassy lower slopes into tall forests, with lowland stands dominated by the endemic trees Drimys confertifolia and Myrceugenia, while tree ferns such as Dicksonia and Thyrsopteris and the endangered chonta palm (Juania australis) occur on the islands. The climate is subtropical, moderated by the cold Humboldt Current and southeast trade winds that bring higher rainfall in winter and drier summers. These isolated forests carry an exceptionally high level of endemic vascular plants, including the endemic plant family Lactoridaceae, and host the Juan Fernández firecrown, the only hummingbird endemic to an oceanic island. The archipelago is protected as a national park and World Biosphere Reserve, yet more than half of its endemic plants are threatened, chiefly by introduced goats and rabbits.

RESOLVE 560

Neotropic

56 sq mi

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

Landscape type

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

Plant region

Neotropic

Region footprint

56 sq mi

Habitat pressure

Nature Could Recover (Dinerstein NNH 3)

Source & care

Plants that can handle this region

Plotwright does not have climate-fit plant matches for this region yet. As the catalog grows into this climate band, suggestions will appear here.

Similar planting regions

Browse other regions in the same biome. Their plant lists can suggest species and combinations worth comparing.

Southern beech forest below the granite towers of Valle del Frances, Torres del Paine.

RESOLVE 561 - Neotropic

Magellanic subpolar forests

The Magellanic subpolar forests cloak the flanks of the southern Andes and adjacent lowlands of southernmost South America, spanning southern Chile and Argentina out to the Tierra del Fuego archipelago and holding the world's southernmost forests. Southern beeches of the genus Nothofagus dominate, with evergreen Magellan's beech (Nothofagus betuloides) to the wetter west giving way to deciduous lenga (N. pumilio) and nire (N. antarctica) toward the east, alongside Drimys winteri and the conifer Pilgerodendron uviferum. The climate is cold and wet, shaped by strong westerly winds that bend exposed trees into distinctive flag forms, with rainfall falling sharply from the western slopes to the drier eastern margin. The region shelters notable wildlife including the southern pudu, the world's smallest deer, and the Chilean huemul, while the introduced North American beaver remains a significant invasive threat. For gardeners, the native Drimys winteri, known as Winter's bark, is grown ornamentally for its aromatic evergreen foliage.

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

RESOLVE 562 - Neotropic

San Félix-San Ambrosio Islands temperate forests

The San Félix-San Ambrosio Islands temperate forests cover Chile's tiny, volcanic Desventuradas Islands, San Félix and San Ambrosio, which sit roughly 850 kilometers off the South American mainland in the Pacific. Despite the "temperate forests" name, the islands carry no true forest: vegetation is sparse, arid scrubland of low cushion-forming bushes, with denser growth only where fog collects on San Ambrosio. The flagship plant, Thamnoseris lacerata, is an endemic shrub and the only species in its genus, found nowhere else on Earth and forming clusters and hedges along the bases of cliffs. The climate is Mediterranean, warm, moist and oceanic, with very low annual rainfall falling mainly in winter and no permanent freshwater, so the islands depend heavily on fog for moisture. Land vertebrates are limited to birds, including marine seabirds and a single land bird, and the surrounding waters gained protection in 2015 through the Nazca-Desventuradas Marine Park, one of the largest marine reserves in the Americas.

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

RESOLVE 563 - Neotropic

Valdivian temperate forests

The Valdivian temperate forests stretch down the southern cone of South America, occupying a narrow strip in Chile and Argentina between the western slope of the Andes and the Pacific Ocean. They are dominated by evergreen southern beeches of the genus Nothofagus alongside long-lived conifers, including the alerce (Fitzroya cupressoides) and the monkey puzzle tree (Araucaria araucana), over a dense understory of Chusquea bamboos, ferns, and the giant-leaved Gunnera tinctoria. The climate is shaped by the prevailing westerlies, and orographic rainfall climbs from around 1,000 mm a year at the northern edge to more than 6,000 mm in the south. These are the only temperate rainforests in South America, where the alerce ranks among the tallest and longest-lived trees on the continent and roughly half of the woody plant species are found nowhere else. Gardeners may recognize Chile's national flower, the climbing copihue (Lapageria rosea), as a native of these forests.

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

RESOLVE 328 - Nearctic

Allegheny Highlands forests

The Allegheny Highlands forests stretch across the Allegheny Plateau of Pennsylvania and New York, a hilly landscape of deeply cut river valleys, waterfalls, and-in the glaciated New York portion-the Finger Lakes. Under a cold temperate climate, pre-settlement forests were dominated by hemlock-white pine-northern hardwoods, with eastern hemlock and beech most abundant alongside sugar maple, red maple, birch, white ash, and black cherry. Eastern hemlock, the ecoregion's flagship species, is now declining across much of the region due to the introduced hemlock woolly adelgid, while over-abundant white-tailed deer suppress forest regeneration.

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

RESOLVE 329 - Nearctic

Appalachian mixed mesophytic forests

The Mixed Mesophytic - the most species-diverse temperate hardwood forest in North America - covers the Cumberland Plateau and adjacent unglaciated dissected uplands of West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, southern Ohio, southwestern Virginia, and eastern Tennessee. Sugar maple, American beech, tulip poplar, yellow buckeye, basswood, and white ash share cove-forest canopies with more than two dozen co-dominant species - a richness inherited from being ice-sheet-free during the Pleistocene.

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

RESOLVE 331 - Nearctic

Appalachian-Blue Ridge forests

The Blue Ridge province - the eastern spine of the southern Appalachians from southern Pennsylvania through northern Georgia. Cove hardwoods on protected slopes, oak-hickory mid-slope, northern hardwoods + spruce-fir on the highest peaks (Mt. Mitchell to 6,684 ft). Long the eastern US's wettest non-coastal region; many endemic plants tied to perched coves.

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

Where this ecoregion reaches

The countries, US states, and Canadian provinces this ecoregion touches, from a spatial join of its RESOLVE polygon against Natural Earth boundaries.

Countries

Chile

Educator packet

Region packet

Juan Fernández Islands temperate forests educator packet

The Juan Fernández Islands temperate forests cover a small Chilean archipelago in the southeastern Pacific roughly 665 kilometers off the mainland, made up of Robinson Crusoe, Alejandro Selkirk, and Santa Clara islands. Vegetation grades by elevation from grassy lower slopes into tall forests, with lowland stands dominated by the endemic trees Drimys confertifolia and Myrceugenia, while tree ferns such as Dicksonia and Thyrsopteris and the endangered chonta palm (Juania australis) occur on the islands. The climate is subtropical, moderated by the cold Humboldt Current and southeast trade winds that bring higher rainfall in winter and drier summers. These isolated forests carry an exceptionally high level of endemic vascular plants, including the endemic plant family Lactoridaceae, and host the Juan Fernández firecrown, the only hummingbird endemic to an oceanic island. The archipelago is protected as a national park and World Biosphere Reserve, yet more than half of its endemic plants are threatened, chiefly by introduced goats and rabbits.

Realm

Neotropic

Dominant biome

Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests

Approximate area

56 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.

Sources & citations

Cite this page

For lesson plans, articles, or regional planting notes that use this Plotwright page. To cite the underlying ecoregion framework or a specific editorial profile, use the source cards below.

Plotwright. (n.d.). Juan Fernández Islands temperate forests (Juan Fernández Islands temperate forests). Retrieved 2026, August 20, from https://plotwright.com/regions/resolve-560

Sources for this region

This page cites Plotwright first for the compiled view, then lists the upstream framework, climate, and editorial source pages so readers can cite the original material directly.

RESOLVE 2017 Terrestrial Ecoregions (Dinerstein et al.)

Primary ecoregion framework

One Earth

Wikipedia

Wikimedia Foundation

Open source

Source guide