Tropical Andes

The Tropical Andes region includes the northernmost Andes ranges from Venezuela south into Bolivia. Spanning more than 1,500,000 sq km (580,000 sq mi), the ranges include:

• the Venezuelan Andes

• the Colombian Andes

• the Ecuadorian Andes

• most of the Peruvian Andes

• much of the Bolivian Andes

The Tropical Andes is the northernmost of the three climate-delineated regions of the Andes Mountains system. The climate-delineated regions include:

• the Tropical Andes

• the Dry Andes

• the Wet Andes

The landscape is diverse: from snow-capped mountain peaks to valleys and canyons. The diverse landscape leads to diverse habitats:

• tropical rainforests at 500 - 1,500 m (1,600 - 4,900 ft) asl

• cloud forests from 800 - 3,500 m (2,600 - 11,500 ft) asl

• grasslands up to the snowline at 3,000 - 4,800 m (9,800 - 15,700 ft) asl

Dry forests and woodlands are also found throughout the Tropical Andes. The range is home to the deepest gorge in Peru, Colca Canyon, at 3,223 m (10,574 ft) depth and Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable body of water, at an altitude of 3,810 m (12,500 ft) asl.

_{Map depicting the climatic regions of the Andes: Tropical Andes in green, Dry Andes in yellow, and Wet Andes in blue}

Biodiversity Hotspot

The Tropical Andes Biodiversity Hotspot extends from western Venezuela to northern Chile and Argentina and includes large portions of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.

The Tropical Andes is the most biologically diverse of all recognized hotspots and contains about one-sixth of all plant life on the planet, including 30,000 species of vascular plants. The region also has the widest variety of amphibian, bird and mammal species. All in less than 1% of the world's territory.

According to the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, the Tropical Andes leads the world in plant endemism, with an estimated 50 percent (and perhaps more) of its species found nowhere else on Earth.

The Andean Region is by far the most diverse on Earth for amphibians, with approximately 980 species and more than 670 endemics. More than 1,700 species of birds, with a third of them endemic. More than 375 species of freshwater fishes have been documented, but their conservation status is primarily unknown.

Birds are the most species-rich vertebrate group in the hotspot and represent another group for which diversity is greater here than in any other hotspot.

With 570 species, no other hotspot has a greater diversity of mammals. Most species, as elsewhere in the tropics, are rodents and bats. The large mammals of the Andes are remnants of a much more diverse megafaunal community that became extinct with the arrival of humans on the continent. Among them, guanacos (Lama guanicoe) and vicugnas (Vicugna vicugna) are iconic ungulates that persist in the southern Tropical Andes.

The challenges that the region faces include the following:

• intense human development that involves excessive mining and harmful environmental practices

• the lumber industry

• the growth of land for cattle ranching

• oil extraction

• hydroelectric dams

• narcotics cultivation and plantation

_{Map depicting the Tropical Andes Region}

Biomes

Four major habitat types or biomes are found within the Tropical Andes:

• tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests

• tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests

• deserts and xeric shrublands

• Montane grasslands and shrublands

Ecological Regions

The ecoregions within the Tropical Andes hotspot include:

• Cordillera de la Costa montane forests (Venezuela)

• Venezuelan Andes montane forests (Venezuela)

• Cordillera Oriental montane forests (Colombia, Venezuela)

• Santa Marta páramo (Colombia)

• Santa Marta montane forests (Colombia)

• Northern Andean páramo (Colombia, Ecuador)

• Magdalena Valley montane forests (Colombia)

• Northwestern Andean montane forests (Colombia, Ecuador)

• Cauca Valley montane forests (Colombia)

• Cauca Valley dry forests (Colombia)

• Magdalena Valley dry forests (Colombia)

• Patía Valley dry forests (Colombia)

• Eastern Cordillera Real montane forests (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru)

• Marañón dry forests (Peru)

• Peruvian Yungas (Peru)

• Cordillera Central páramo (Peru)

• Central Andean wet puna (Bolivia, Peru)

• Central Andean puna (Bolivia, Peru)

• Bolivian Yungas (Bolivia, Peru)

• Bolivian montane dry forests (Bolivia)

_{Map depicting the Ecoregions of the Tropical Andes}