Western Ecuador moist forests
RESOLVE 516
The Western Ecuador moist forests stretch along the Pacific coastal plain and lower Andean foothills of southwestern Colombia and western Ecuador, running through the provinces of Esmeraldas, Manabí, and Guayas down to the Gulf of Guayaquil. These tall, lush broadleaf forests are defined by canopy trees such as Brosimum utile, Virola dixonii, Symphonia globulifera, and crabwood (Carapa guianensis), with subcanopy palms like Iriartea deltoidea and Wettinia and abundant lianas and epiphytes. The climate is wet and equatorial with no distinct dry season, rainfall climbing from around 2,000 mm in the south to roughly 7,000 mm in the north, sustaining growth nearly year-round. As part of the Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena biodiversity hotspot, the ecoregion is exceptionally rich and highly endemic, and its flagship species is the critically endangered Rio Pescado stubfoot toad (an Atelopus); much of the original forest has been cleared for banana plantations, oil palm, and rubber. For temperate gardeners these humid-tropical natives are largely glasshouse subjects, though the stately palm Iriartea deltoidea is grown ornamentally in suitably warm, frost-free climates.
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.
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.