One of the most unique environments in the world survives on Costa Rica’s mountaintops. Cloud forests like Monteverde’s are formed by a combination of wind and geography. When trade winds flow from the northeast across the warm Caribbean Sea they drive moist air into the Cordillera Tilarán. … [Read more...]
Costa Rica's Ecozones & Micro Climates
Holdridge Life Zones Map of Costa Rica's Micro Climates
There are countless variations in moisture, insolation, elevation, temperature, wind, and other environmental factors that create more than a dozen recognized Ecozones in Costa Rica. Also known as "life zones" or "micro-climates" these regions each has a different variety of plants, animals, birds and insects.
Dry Forests
The tropical dry forest native to the lower elevations of Guanacaste and the Nicoya Peninsula nearly all went through the typical progression referred to as “improvement.” The commercially valuable lumber was removed by clear cutting and everything remaining burned to open new fields. Sometimes … [Read more...]
Gallery Forest
Gallery forests are the ecological environment travelers encounter most frequently in Costa Rica. These are basically any forest you can look at straight on like pictures hanging in a gallery. Edge or gallery forest occurs where there's a gap in the canopy and the ground and sides of the … [Read more...]
Islands
Most of the protected islands in Costa Rica have landing prohibition policies in effect. Visitors are welcome to cruise offshore photographing birds and other wildlife and boat dives are allowed at most, but the islands themselves are off limits. These strict regulations are enforced because the … [Read more...]
Mangroves
The mangrove ecosystem is one of the most important to the world's economies and one of the most endangered. By definition mangroves grow in swamps which are areas that are fully or intermittently submerged but support populations of trees and other woody plants. Different species of … [Read more...]
Páramo
Rainy Páramo - also known as Andean Páramo is sort of the tropical equivalent of tundra and occurs at very high elevations above tree line. The plant life is dominated by shrubs and small herbs on slopes and bogs in low lying areas where water accumulates. Originally the páramo ecosystem was … [Read more...]
Rain Forest
Tropical rain forests are what most people envision when they hear the word jungle and the ecological region that most people want to visit when they plan travel to Costa Rica. Over half of the National Parks in Costa Rica protect some tropical rain forest. Rain forests in the western … [Read more...]
Volcanoes
Individual Volcanic National Parks are described here and via the links below. The geological activity that led to the formation of Costa Rica's volcanoes continues today generating lava eruptions at Turrialba in 2015-2017 and the boiling mud pots, geysers and hot springs at Arenal, Irazú, … [Read more...]
Wetlands
In Costa Rica if it's Flat it's Probably Wet There are two main types of wetlands. Marshes of grassy herbaceous plants and swamps with woody trees and shrubs. Most of Costa Rica's swamps are comprised of mangroves which are described in detail at that link. Grassy marshes cover much of … [Read more...]