The following slides supplement the forest readings by Bates and Carr.

I have included images from Mexico and Central America to show you what Bates and Carr describe.

I also use some of the terms(in italics) that they employ in their descriptions.

Only along the river will you find jungle. Notice that the forest floor is not open. That’s because along the river light penetrates to the floor and allows vegetative growth.

Rio Wampu in La Mosquitia in eastern Honduras .

“Balsa”: Actually a made out of the buoyant trunks of several balsa trees

“Pipante” is a local term for “dug-out canoe”. This pipante is made out of “caoba” (Mahogany) which is a tropical rainforest (broadleaf evergreen) tree species.

“Gringo”: non-native species of mammal

Rio Patuca in Honduran La Mosquitia.

Several gringos in a pipante on the Rio Patuca. Dug-out canoes can be extremely large. That is a function of the giantism of some tropical rainforest species. Columbus reported encountering a dug-out canoe on the north coast of Honduras which held 200 people.

Your instructor

This diagram demonstrates how changes in elevation affect the distribution of natural vegetation and forest types. The previous few slides showed locations that are below 500m.

Cloud Forest, or weeping woods The cloud layer

begins at about 1800m.

The rock and cactus are on the rain shadow side of a Honduran mountain where verano is an extremely dry season.

Tropical Dry or Tropical Deciduous Forest.

-1800

-1500

Cloud forest

Ocotal. This a pine forest on the rain shadow side of a Honduran mountain. Note how small and sparse the plants are. Tropical Dry Forest.

Hella ocotal! This pine forest is in the highlands (>1800m) of Oaxaca, Mexico in the cloud forest. The trees are larger and more densely distributed than in the Tropical Dry Forest because at this high elevation more moisture is available for plants.

Cloud forest or Montaña

Tropical rain forest at the bottom of this slope, which is ~700m.

This settlement is at approximately 1400m.

1900mSan Miguel de Tiltepec, Oaxaca, Mexico.

Cloud

Road

Hella cloud

~2000 m in Honduras’ Western Highlands

Bromeliad epiphytes

Hijo

Bromeliad epiphytes

In this case, the cloud forest tree is dead, but still supports a large community of epiphytes.

Fajas de Montaña

Cloud forest archipelago

This aerial photograph shows a fragmented cloud forest area in western Honduras.

Inside a faja de montaña

Mochila Notice how open the forest floor is. Why?

Inside a faja de montaña