Southern Mesoamerican Pacific mangroves
RESOLVE 617
The Southern Mesoamerican Pacific mangroves trace the Pacific coast of Central America, spanning Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, with its northernmost reach along the Chiapas and Oaxaca coastal plain. These are tidal mangrove forests built from red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle), black mangrove, white mangrove (Laguncularia racemosa), and button and tea mangroves in shifting assemblages, alongside the water zapotón (Pachira aquatica), with trees reaching up to 25 meters tall. The climate is tropical but uneven across the region, ranging from wet sectors receiving roughly 2,500 to 3,000 mm of rain a year to drier coastal stretches around 1,400 to 1,600 mm with temperatures near 27 to 29 degrees Celsius. The ecoregion shelters notable wildlife including jaguars, tapirs, and crocodiles, and is home to two endemic, endangered birds, the mangrove hummingbird and the yellow-billed cotinga, with a large area protected in Costa Rica by Corcovado National Park. For gardeners, the native Pachira aquatica is widely grown elsewhere as the ornamental "money tree."
About the mangroves biome
Coastal tidal forests of salt-tolerant trees rooted in sheltered estuaries and shorelines of the tropics and subtropics. Mangroves buffer coasts from storms, store large amounts of carbon, and serve as nurseries for fish and shellfish.
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.