The Magdalena-Urabá moist forests stretch across northern Colombia, following the flat lower valley of the Magdalena River and extending west over the coastal plain to the Gulf of Urabá, with mountainous terrain rising in the south. These dense tropical moist broadleaf forests are built around tall canopy trees such as Ceiba pentandra, Anacardium excelsum, Cedrela odorata, Hymenaea courbaril, and Tabebuia rosea, giving way to palms and wetland vegetation across the region's many flooded ciénagas. The climate is equatorial and monsoonal (Köppen Am), warm year-round at roughly 27 to 29 degrees Celsius, with mean rainfall near 3,000 mm in the lowlands climbing toward 4,000 mm in the upper valleys and brief dry spells around January-March and July-August. Despite hosting the critically endangered, endemic cotton-top tamarin and more than 150 orchid species, the World Wide Fund for Nature ranks it as Critical/Endangered owing to farming, ranching, logging, mining, and river pollution. For gardeners, the showy pink-flowered Tabebuia rosea, Heliconia, and orchids like Cattleya warscewiczii are all native ornamentals of this region.
Marker placed inside the RESOLVE 2017 polygon at 8.3°N, 74.9°W.
Climate snapshot for this ecoregion
°C
°F
Current zone range (2011–2040)
12b-13b
Plotwright
CHELSA-derived typical winter month at this ecoregion's bbox grid.
Projected (2041–2070)
12b-13b
Plotwright
Where the CHELSA models say the typical winter month is heading.
Average warming this ecoregion is on track for: +3.6°F by mid-century. SSP3-7.0 (current trajectory) · CHELSA v2.1 bio06 sampled across 10 of 10 points within this ecoregion's bounding box.
At a glance
Dominant biome
Tropical & Subtropical Moist Broadleaf Forests
Realm
Neotropic
Approximate area
29,635 sq mi
Conservation tier
Nature Could Recover (Dinerstein NNH 3)
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
Computed from each plant's stated USDA zone range against this ecoregion's CHELSA-derived current zone range, with the CHELSA mid-century warming delta applied for the projection. Plants whose stated range falls outside both the current and projected zone end up dropped; the rest land in one of the three buckets below.
Climate-resilient picks · 4
These plants fit this ecoregion today AND remain in range under the mid-century SSP3-7.0 projection. Lead with these for a planting that holds up as the climate shifts.
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: