The Pantepui Forests and Shrublands span the Guiana Highlands of northern South America, perched atop an archipelago of more than 50 flat-topped sandstone mountains, called tepuis, scattered across Venezuela, Brazil, Guyana, and Suriname. These isolated tabletop summits rise between roughly 1,000 and 3,000 meters and carry a mosaic of montane shrublands, meadows, open rock communities, and forests, with summit vegetation drawing on families such as Magnolia and Viburnum. The climate is constantly humid, with rainfall on the order of 2,000 to 4,000 millimeters a year, a subtle dry season, and average temperatures across the year ranging from about 8 to 20 degrees Celsius, though exposed summits can fall to freezing. Long isolation has made the tepuis a center of extraordinary endemism, often likened to the "Galapagos Islands of the mainland," with a large share of their vascular plants found nowhere else and many restricted to a single mountain. The nutrient-poor summit soils favor carnivorous plants like Heliamphora and Drosera alongside abundant orchids and bromeliads.
Marker placed inside the RESOLVE 2017 polygon at 5.8°N, 65.4°W.
Climate snapshot for this ecoregion
°C
°F
Current zone range (2011–2040)
13b
Plotwright
CHELSA-derived typical winter month at this ecoregion's bbox grid.
Projected (2041–2070)
13b
Plotwright
Where the CHELSA models say the typical winter month is heading.
Average warming this ecoregion is on track for: +3.5°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
19,652 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: