Central Range Montane Rain Forests
The montane rain forests (from 1,000 to 3,000m) can be further categorised into three broad vegetation zones on the mountains, distinguished by elevation. The lower montane forests extend from 1,000 to 1,500 metres elevation. They are dominated by broadleaf evergreen trees, including Castanopsis acuminatissima, Lithocarpus spp., elaeocarps, and laurels. Coniferous Araucarias may form thick stands. The upper montane forests, which extend from 1,500 to 2,500 metres elevation, are dominated by moss-covered Nothofagus. Finally, the high mountain forest extends from 2,500 to 3,000 metres elevation. Conifers (Podocarpus, Dacrycarpus, Dacrydium, Papuacedrus, Araucaria, and Libocedrus) and broadleaf trees of the Myrtle family (Myrtaceae) form a thin canopy, with a prominent understory.
The montane forests are home to a rich wildlife, a great deal of which is unique to these mountains including a many of plants, reptiles and over 100 birds and animals. Of the 90 mammals found on the island, 44 are endemic, a very high proportion. The birds and animals include many Australasian species such as Tree-kangaroos, Bowerbirds, Australasian Robins, Honeyeaters, and Birds of Paradise. Four of the endemic mammals are critically endangered: the Bulmer's Fruit Bat, with only tiny communities remaining in the Papua New Guinea end of the island, and three rodents; a large Leptomys, the Eastern Shrew Mouse, and the Lesser Small-toothed Rat. There are 55 bird species endemic to the mountains from a total of 348 birds found here. There are a number of endemic butterflies, particularly on the Weyland Mountains and the Wahgi Valley.
Apart from in the cultivated valleys the montane forests are largely intact, although the logging industry is a constant threat as more and more access to the mountains is achieved by road building. 20% of this ecoregion is contained within protected areas, mostly in the Indonesian half of the island, including the largest protected area in South East Asia, the huge Lorentz National Park in the highlands, a section of which is montane forest ecosystem.
Read more about this topic: New Guinea Highlands, Ecology
Other articles related to "forests, forest, central":
... Nearctic Tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests Sonoran-Sinaloan transition subtropical dry forest Mexico Nearctic Tropical and subtropical coniferous forests Bermuda ... hardwood forests United States East Central Texas forests United States Eastern forest-boreal transition Canada, United States Eastern Great Lakes lowland forests Canada, United States Gulf of St ... Lawrence lowland forests Canada Lac Saint-Jean and Saguenay valley forests Canada Mississippi lowland forests United States New England-Acadian forests Canada, United States Northeastern coastal forests United ...
Famous quotes containing the words forests, rain, central and/or range:
“A tree is beautiful, but what’s more, it has a right to life; like water, the sun and the stars, it is essential. Life on earth is inconceivable without trees. Forests create climate, climate influences peoples’ character, and so on and so forth. There can be neither civilization nor happiness if forests crash down under the axe, if the climate is harsh and severe, if people are also harsh and severe.... What a terrible future!”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“Come rain or come shine.”
—Johnny Mercer (1909–1976)
“The fantasies inspired by TB in the last century, by cancer now, are responses to a disease thought to be intractable and capricious—that is, a disease not understood—in an era in which medicine’s central premise is that all diseases can be cured.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“Culture is the suggestion, from certain best thoughts, that a man has a range of affinities through which he can modulate the violence of any master-tones that have a droning preponderance in his scale, and succor him against himself. Culture redresses this imbalance, puts him among equals and superiors, revives the delicious sense of sympathy, and warns him of the dangers of solitude and repulsion.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)