Rio Plátano
Rio Plátano is a significant biome located on the Caribbean slopes of Honduras, recognized for its rich biodiversity and designated as a Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 2000. Spanning approximately 2,030 square miles (5,250 square kilometers) in the La Mosquitia region, it encompasses a diverse array of ecosystems, including wetlands, lowlands, beaches, and mountains. This area is home to over half of Honduras's biodiversity, with notable species including Baird's tapir and various birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. The region supports a variety of indigenous communities, such as the Pech, Tawahka, Miskito, and Garífuna peoples, who have longstanding connections to the land.
Despite its ecological importance, Rio Plátano faces numerous challenges, including illegal logging, agricultural expansion, and climate change impacts, which threaten its delicate ecosystems. Conservation efforts have been initiated to combat these issues, including increased enforcement against illegal activities. The biome's varied environmental zones, such as coastal wetlands and savannas, contribute to its ecological richness, but ongoing threats call for continued attention and management to protect its unique habitats and species.
Subject Terms
Rio Plátano
- Category: Inland Aquatic Biomes.
- Geographic Location: Central America.
- Summary: This biome and Biosphere Reserve includes thirty-five ecosystems that represent habitat for more than half of Honduras’s biodiversity.
The Plátano River biome is located on the Caribbean slopes of Honduras, within the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor. It includes beaches, dunes, lagoons, wetlands, lowlands, and mountains, containing twenty-eight terrestrial ecosystems and five coastal marine ecosystems at altitudes ranging up to 4,350 feet (1,326 meters). The wetlands dominate the biome, and the aquatic regimes throughout the region model the species compositions. The fauna have wide seasonal variations. Along the river region, annual precipitation varies from 63 to 142 inches (1,600 to 3,600 millimeters) and temperatures average 80 Fahrenheit (27 Celsius). The region experiences four tropical storms and two hurricanes in an average decade. Over 2,000 Indigenous individuals continue to live in the biome, including the Pech, Tawahka, Miskito, and Garífuna peoples.
The Plátano River biome comprises 2,030 square miles (5,250 square kilometers) within the La Mosquitia region; it was declared a Biosphere Reserve in 2000 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). However, by the 2020s, development in and around the reserve had become a concern, some of which was illegal.
Biodiversity
Broadleaf evergreen forest is the dominant terrestrial ecosystem surrounding the Plátano River. Ten of the local ecosystems are not represented in the protected areas of the country—but all the ecosystems here represent an important part of the nation’s biodiversity, which includes 10 percent of the flora, 27 percent of the amphibians, 36 percent of the reptiles, 57 percent of the birds, 68 percent of the mammals, and 70 percent of the freshwater fish, totaling more than 720 vertebrate species. Endemism (species found only here) covers thirty flora, five amphibians, two reptiles, and four freshwater fish species in the La Mosquitia lowlands of the biome.
Documented fauna include thirty-nine species of mammals, such as Baird’s tapir, white-headed capuchin, mantled howler and spider monkeys, brown-throated sloth, paca, kinkajou, white-nosed coati, Central American otter, puma, collared peccary, and white-lipped peccary. Rare or endangered species include the giant anteater, jaguar, ocelot, margay, Caribbean West Indian manatee, the endangered Central American tapir, and the critically endangered Mexican Spider Monkey.
More than 411 bird species have been recorded, including the king vulture; harpy eagle; great curassow; crested guan; scarlet, green and military macaws; and well over 125 species of reptiles and amphibians, including at least seven poisonous snakes; American crocodile; green iguana; and green, loggerhead, and leatherback sea turtles.
Broadleaf riparian forests along the river and its tributaries have tall canopies and are usually dominated by tree species such as Albizia spp., Calophyllum spp., Inga spp., Cecropia spp., Ficus spp., Lonchocarpus spp., Ochroma spp., and Luehea spp. Although most of the forests associated with the Plátano watershed are poorly known, among the most important trees are the economically important Honduran mahogany or caoba tree (Swietenia macrophylla) and the ecologically important Apeiba membranacea, Gumbo limbo (Bursera simaruba), and crabwood (Carapa guianensis).
Ecological Zones
There are six ecological zones (EZ) within the Plátano River biome.
The marine EZ includes sea and coastal land where the rocky-coral-reef-clump habitats are present, with variations from the subtidal zone to immediate offshore areas down to about 656 feet (200 meters).
The beach EZ is characterized by homogeneous sandy substrates extending along 40 miles (65 kilometers) of the coastline, where the main river flows to the sea. The intertidal zone is used by four marine turtle species for nesting, mainly the loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) and the leatherback sea turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), and occasionally the green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) and the hawksbill sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata). In this EZ, the sand dune ecosystem is found, including herbaceous and shrub flora, sand dunes, and swaths of semideciduous forest.
The coastal wetland EZ has different ecosystems, depending on the saline influence. The salty lagoons with the highest saline input include marine species; the temporary lagoon populations depend on the season’s regimes. Apart from the lagoon ecosystem, other habitat types include mangroves, swamp forests, swamp semideciduous forests, and herbaceous swamps with palm ecosystems.
The river EZ historically has been used as a corridor for humans and wildlife, connecting all the ecological zones of the biome. In this zone are the main and tributary rivers and their estuaries, the meanders, the riparian forests, the seasonally flooded alluvial forests, and the agro-ecological gallery forest plant and animal communities.
The savanna EZ is an important influence on water runoff and flood patterns, and is considered a seasonal local migratory site for many vertebrates. Eight ecosystems are located here: flooded savanna, floodplain, floodplain with pine, islets of thicket, savanna saturated with pine, semideciduous gallery forest, broadleaf forest, and submontane pine savanna.
In the broadleaf forest EZ, there are four types of broadleaf evergreen forests, each with different species compositions depending on the terrain and water availability.
Threats and Conservation
Some of the main threats to this biome include agricultural expansion by small farmers and cattle ranchers, which generally reduce the size of the remaining forests. Intensive extraction of both precious woods and wildlife seriously threatens the area, especially with the heavy logging of caoba (Swietenia macrophylla). Uncontrolled commercial hunting of wild animals is another problem, with the related challenge of introduced invasive species of many kinds.
As with most river systems in the tropics, only small portions are protected. The Rio Plátano Biosphere Reserve represents one of the few governmental protection initiatives for the Plátano watershed, but still has serious shortcomings from low active management practices and scant operative protection. In the early 2020s, the government's preservation initiatives and efforts by the Forest Conservation Institute decreased illegal logging by 66 percent. Newly implemented measures included an increased military presence in areas commonly targeted for illegal logging and the creation of a task force to combat environmental crimes.
Climate change is of increasing concern to this tropical area, where the dry season has become more pronounced both from climate change and the continuously expanding deforestation. In 2021, UNESCO researchers surveyed 257 protected forests and discovered ten were, for the first time, emitting more carbon than they were absorbing. Among these was Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve. This was attributed to an increase in wildfires, drought, deforestation, and several other factors related to climate change.
Bibliography
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