100 Places To Remember: Monteverde Cloud Forest, Costa Rica
Geschreven op 5-3-2010 - Erik van Erne. Geplaatst in Natuur
The Cloud Forest of Monteverde is a tropical rainforest about 1,700 metres above sea level in central Costa Rica. With its majestic trees festooned with orchids, bromeliads, ferns, vines and mosses, it is home to a multitude of rare animal and plant species.
Monteverde is Spanish for green mountain and the Cloud Forest is the natural habitat of more than 100 species of mammal and 400 species of bird, including 30 kinds of hummingbird. Among the tens of thousands of different insects are over 5,000 species of moth. Add to this 2,500 plant species, including 420 different orchids, and you have one of the most outstanding wildlife sanctuaries in the New World tropics.
Over thousands of years, the ecosystem of the Cloud Forest has adapted to its temperature and humidity, which are determined by the cloud cover on the mountains. The humidity is almost 100% for most of the year, and any change in temperature and cloud cover would have a serious effect on the ecosystem.
If temperatures increase, the clouds will rise to a higher altitude, and an increase of 1-2ºC over the next 50 years would have a substantial impact on the diversity and composition of species in tropical cloud forests. Even in areas that experience a relatively low rise in temperature, some species will be threatened with extinction as they are unable to migrate further up the mountain.
By 2080, rainfall in Costa Rica is expected to decrease by 5-10% and temperatures to rise by around 2.5ºC.
