The Huon Peninsula montane rain forests is a
tropical moist forest
Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests (TSMF), also known as tropical moist forest, is a subtropical and tropical forest habitat type defined by the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Description
TSMF is generally found in large, discon ...
ecoregion
An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of ...
in
New Guinea
New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; id, Papua, or , historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island with an area of . Located in Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is separated from Mainlan ...
. The ecoregion covers the mountains of northeastern New Guinea's
Huon Peninsula
Huon Peninsula is a large rugged peninsula on the island of New Guinea in Morobe Province, eastern Papua New Guinea. It is named after French explorer Jean-Michel Huon de Kermadec. The peninsula is dominated by the steep Saruwaged and Finister ...
.
Geography
The ecoregion is made up of montane rain forests on the Huon Peninsula. The montane rain forests occur above 1000 meters elevation on the Peninsula's mountain ranges, which include the
Finisterre (to 4,176 m),
Saruwaged (to 4,122 m), and
Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three K ...
and
Rawlinson ranges.
[Wikramanayake, Eric; Eric Dinerstein; Colby J. Loucks; et al. (2002). ''Terrestrial Ecoregions of the Indo-Pacific: a Conservation Assessment.'' Washington, DC: Island Press.]
Climate
The ecoregion has a montane tropical rain forest climate.
Flora
The ecoregion's forests are of several types, which vary with rainfall, elevation, and underlying soils. Lowland hill forests occupy the foothills of the range, forming a transition between the lowland alluvial forests below and the montane forests above. Montane rain forests grow between 1000 and 3000 meters elevation. Evergreen broadleaf trees are predominant, with conifers occurring above 2000 meters elevation and becoming more abundant at higher elevations. Species composition varies with elevation. There are also areas of limestone forest.
[
The ephiphytic ]moss
Mosses are small, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryophytes, which comprise liverworts, mosses, and horn ...
'' Merrilliobryum tanianum'' is endemic to the ecoregion.
Fauna
The ecoregion has 81 species of mammals, including marsupial
Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a p ...
s, murid rodents, and bats. There are Huon tree kangaroo (''Dendrolagus matschiei'') is endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...
to the ecoregion. Several limited-range rodents, including the Highland brush mouse (''Abeomelomys sevia'') and Ernst Mayr's water rat (''Leptomys ernstmayri''), inhabit the ecoregion and neighboring highlands.[
There are two endemic bird species, the ]Emperor bird-of-paradise
The emperor bird-of-paradise (''Paradisaea guilielmi''), also known as emperor of Germany's bird-of-paradise, is a species of bird-of-paradise.
The emperor bird-of-paradise is endemic to Papua New Guinea. It is distributed in hill forests of the ...
(''Paradisaea guilielmi'') and Huon astrapia (''Astrapia rothschildi'').[ Together with the Adelbert Range to the west (which is part of the ]Northern New Guinea montane rain forests
The Northern New Guinea montane rain forests is a tropical moist forest ecoregion in northern New Guinea. The ecoregion covers several separate mountain ranges lying north of New Guinea's Central Range and south of the Pacific Ocean.
Geogra ...
ecoregion), the ecoregion forms the Adelbert and Huon ranges endemic bird area.["Endemic Bird Areas factsheet: Adelbert and Huon ranges". BirdLife International (2020). Accessed 14 July 2021. http://datazone.birdlife.org/eba/factsheet/177.]
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Protected areas
3.7% of the ecoregion is in protected areas. Protected areas include Nusareng Wildlife Management Area (10.26 km2) and YUS Conservation Area (793.11 km2).[
]
External links
*
"Huon Peninsula montane rain forests". ''DOPA Explorer''
Adelbert and Huon ranges endemic bird area (BirdLife International)
References
{{reflist
Australasian ecoregions
Ecoregions of Papua New Guinea
Ecoregions of New Guinea
Montane forests
Tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests