Belize pine forests

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Belize pine forests ( English Belizean Pine Forests ) are an ecoregion of tropical lowland and foothills pine forests in Central America .

features

The predominant tree species is the eponymous subspecies of the Caribbean pine (Ocote, Honduras Pine; Pinus caribaea var. Hondurensis). The vegetation is generally strongly adapted to drought ( savannah ), soil acidification and nutrient poverty.

Occurrence

The ecoregion in Central America mainly extends over the coastal zone of Belize facing the Caribbean . It belongs to the zone of wet forests with more than 2,000 mm of annual precipitation and lack of frost. Two smaller areas can be found in Mexico (south of Quintana Roo ) and Guatemala (NE). In Belize, the forests thrive up to heights of 700  m above sea level , roughly in the center of the country on the western slopes of the Maya Mountains . The forests are closed or partially open and there are numerous smaller fragments in the transitions to the pine savanna (pine savanna). In the Maya Mountains, the vegetation zone mixes with other ecoregions such as rainforests, cohune forests (cohune palm, corozal), and cactus associations.

Fauna & flora

The forest region is home to jaguars (Panthera onca), puma (Puma concolor), ocelot (Leopardus pardalis) and gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus). In addition to the eponymous Honduras pine, calabash tree (Crescentia cujete), some oak species (Quercus spp.), Curatella americana , Byrsonima crassifolia , and the palm trees Acoelorrhaphe wrightii and Paurotis wrightii form larger stands. The open crowns, however, give numerous bushes, grasses and wildflowers room to grow. In higher regions, Pinus oocarpa , Podocarpus guatemalensis and Quercus species predominate. Pinus patula and the palm Euterpe macrospadix as well as the tree ferns Alsophila myosuroides and Hemitelia multiflora grow in protected locations .

Threat and protection

Fires regularly break out due to natural causes that destroy large areas of forest but are necessary for regeneration. In the years 1999 to 2003, however, the occurrence of bark beetles was unusually high and destroyed 90,000 hectares of forest alone (mainly Dendroctonus frontalis, but also D. adjunctus, D. mexicanus, D. vitei, D. aproximatus, D. parallelicollis, D. valens ).

Two important protected areas are the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve and the Chiquibul Forest Reserve and National Park .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ C. Michael Hogan & World Wildlife Fund. 2012
  2. ↑ WWF .
  3. ↑ ML Davis, MJ Kelly & DF Stauffer: Carnivore co-existence and habitat use in the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve, Belize. In: Animal Conservation . 2010. ISSN 1367-9430
  4. ↑ WWF .
  5. ^ Bark beetle outbreaks and fire. Unasylva 217, Vol 55. 2004.

literature

Web links