Sinú Valley dry forests


The Sinú Valley dry forests is an ecoregion in the north of Colombia.

Geography

Location

The Sinú Valley is an area of. located within the zone of parallel, north-northeast trending hills that lies between the low-point Magdalena and the Gulf of Urabá in Northwestern Colombia.
In the north, the ecoregion surrounds the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Santa Marta montane forests ecoregion.
To the north it transitions into patches of the Guajira-Barranquilla xeric scrub ecoregion, and into a section of Amazon-Orinoco-Southern Caribbean mangroves along the coast.
To the southeast it transitions into the Cordillera Oriental montane forests ecoregion and in the south meets the Magdalena Valley montane forests ecoregion.
To the southwest it transitions into the Magdalena-Urabá moist forests ecoregion.

Climate

At a sample location at coordinates the Köppen climate classification is "Tropical wet and dry or savanna ".
Mean temperatures range from in October to in March and April.
Total annual rainfall is about.
There is a dry season with little rainfall from December to March. The rest of months lack a strict pattern of rainfall, except for the peak of October which has a rainfall mean that is very high compared to the rest of the year. Monthly rainfall ranges from in December to in October.

Ecology

The ecoregion is in the neotropical realm, in the tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests biome.

Fauna

Endangered mammals include black-headed spider monkey, Geoffroy's spider monkey and red-crested tree-rat.
Endangered amphibians include yellowbelly mushroomtongue salamander, Franklin's climbing salamander, Sierra Juarez brook frog, greater spikethumb frog, Guatemala spikethumb frog, pop-eyed spikethumb frog, arcane spikethumb frog, brown false brook salamander and Goebel's false brook salamander.

Status

The World Wildlife Fund gives the ecoregion the status of "Critical/Endangered".