The Trinidad and Tobago moist forest spans roughly 90 percent of the two-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, the most southerly of the Caribbean's West Indian islands, lying just northeast of the Venezuelan coast and sitting on the South American continental shelf. Closed broadleaf evergreen rainforest dominates, alongside littoral woodland, deciduous seasonal woodland, and swamp forest, with characteristic canopy trees including kapok (Ceiba pentandra), crabwood (Carapa guianensis), hog plum (Spondias mombin), and Mora, and an understory rich in lianas and epiphytic orchids, bromeliads, and ferns. The climate is tropical monsoon, with even temperatures year round (every month above 18 degrees Celsius) and a pronounced dry season. Because Trinidad was joined to the mainland as recently as about 1,500 years ago, its flora and fauna closely resemble those of continental South America, and plant diversity is very high, exceeding 2,500 species with up to 110 found nowhere else. The forest's flagship is the critically endangered, endemic Trinidad piping-guan, which depends on dense primary forest now threatened by timber exploitation, agricultural clearing, and slash-and-burn fires.
Marker placed inside the RESOLVE 2017 polygon at 10.4°N, 61.3°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: +2.4°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
1,830 sq mi
Conservation tier
Nature Could Reach Half Protected (Dinerstein NNH 2)
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: