The Cocos Island moist forests cover the single oceanic island of Cocos (Isla del Coco), a Costa Rican territory rising from the eastern Pacific roughly 523 km southwest of the mainland's Cabo Blanco. Vegetation sorts into three elevation bands: a coastal forest of purple coral tree (Erythrina fusca), coconut palm (Cocos nucifera), and pond-apple (Annona glabra); an inland forest where Sacoglottis holdridgei, Ocotea insularis, and the endemic Cecropia pittieri form the canopy, heavily draped with epiphytic orchids, bromeliads, and mosses; and a summit cloud forest dominated by Melastoma. The climate is warm and wet year-round, a tropical rainforest regime kept under near-constant cloud and heavy rainfall, with annual totals well over 6,000 mm. Around 235 plant species grow here with roughly 30% found nowhere else, and the island's high endemism among plants, insects, reptiles, and birds led Costa Rica to protect it as a national park in 1978 and UNESCO to inscribe it as a World Heritage Site in 1997. For gardeners, several of its natives are familiar ornamentals, including the showy coral tree (Erythrina) and the orchids and bromeliads that festoon its mid-elevation forests.
Marker placed inside the RESOLVE 2017 polygon at 5.5°N, 87.1°W.
Climate snapshot for this ecoregion
Climate snapshot not available at this resolution — this ecoregion sits outside our detailed climate coverage (typically Antarctic interior or far-ocean island chains).
At a glance
Dominant biome
Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Realm
Neotropic
Approximate area
10 sq mi
Conservation tier
Half Protected (Dinerstein NNH 1)
About the tropical & subtropical moist broadleaf forests biome
Warm, wet, highly productive forests — including tropical rainforests — with closed canopies, near year-round growing seasons, and the richest terrestrial biodiversity on Earth. Low seasonality and high rainfall sustain dense, layered vegetation from canopy to forest floor.
Catalog plants suited to this ecoregion
No catalog plants intersect this ecoregion's zone range. As the catalog grows to cover this region's climate band, suggestions will surface here.
Collections for this ecoregion
No curated collection's plants all fit this ecoregion's zone range. We surface a collection only when every member would grow here — partial fits get filtered out rather than mislead. As the catalog and the curated set both grow, this section will fill in.
Related ecoregions
Other tropical & subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregions to explore: