Terrestrial biogeographic region encompassing the Caribbean islands
The Caribbean bioregion is a biogeographic region that includes the islands of the Caribbean Sea and nearby Atlantic islands, which share a fauna, flora and mycobiota distinct from surrounding bioregions.
The Caribbean bioregion's distinct fauna, flora and mycobiota was shaped by long periods of physical separation from the neighboring continents, allowing animals, fungi and plants to evolve in isolation. Other animals, fungi and plants arrived via long-distance oceanic dispersal or island hopping from North America and South America.[2][3]
The bioregion has many plant species, including many endemics. There are about 200 endemic genera of plants. Wallenia, the largest endemic genus, has thirty species, and six other genera have ten or more species.[4]
Three mammal families are endemic to the bioregion; the Solenodontidae includes two species of solenodon, with one species on Cuba and the other on Hispaniola. Fossil evidence shows that the family was once more widespread in North America. The family Nesophontidae, or the West Indian shrews, contained a single genus, Nesophontes, which inhabited Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and the Cayman Islands. All members of the family are now believed to be extinct. The Capromyidae, or hutias, include a number of species, mainly from the Greater Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago. Many other rodents of the Caribbean are also restricted to the region.[5][6]
^Dinerstein, Eric; David Olson; Douglas J. Graham; et al. (1995). A Conservation Assessment of the Terrestrial Ecoregions of Latin America and the Caribbean. World Bank, Washington DC.
^Dinerstein, Eric; David Olson; Douglas J. Graham; et al. (1995). A Conservation Assessment of the Terrestrial Ecoregions of Latin America and the Caribbean. World Bank, Washington DC.
^Iturralde-Vinent, M.A., and R.D.E. MacPhee (1999). Paleogeography of the Caribbean region: Implications for Cenozoic biogeography. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 238:1–95.
^World Wildlife Fund. "Islands of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean". Accessed 4 September 2017. [1]
^Iturralde-Vinent, M.A., and R.D.E. MacPhee (1999). Paleogeography of the Caribbean region: Implications for Cenozoic biogeography. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 238:1–95.
^MacPhee, R.D.E., Ronald Singer, Michael Diamond (2000). "LateCenozoic Land Mammals from Grenada, Lesser Antilles Island-Arc". American Museum Novitates Number 3302, American Museum of Natural History, October 16, 2000.