| Meseta Central matorral | |
|---|---|
 Municipality of Tula, Tamaulipas, Mexico (2003) | |
 Location map for the Meseta Central matorral | |
| Ecology | |
| Realm | Nearctic |
| Biome | deserts and xeric shrublands |
| Borders | |
| Geography | |
| Area | 124,975 km2 (48,253 sq mi) |
| Countries | Mexico |
| States | |
| Conservation | |
| Conservation status | Vulnerable |
| Protected | 2,534 km² (2%) [1] |
The Meseta Central matorral is a deserts and xeric shrublands ecoregion in north-central Mexico.
The Meseta Central matorral occupies the central portion of the Mexican Plateau. It is bounded on the east by the Sierra Madre Oriental. The Sierra de Arteaga, Serranía de Zapalinamé, Sierra La Concordia, and Sierra de Parras ranges separate the ecoregion from the Chihuahuan Desert to the north. The Sierra Madre Occidental bounds the ecoregion on the west. On the south it transitions to the Central Mexican matorral.
Most of the ecoregion is in endorheic basins, where streams drain into saline lakes with no outlet to the sea, including the Llanos el Salado and Bolsón de Mapimí. The western portion of the ecoregion is in the valley of the San Pedro Mezquital River, which drains southwestwards into the Pacific. The southeastern portion of the ecoregion is in the Panuco River basin, which drains eastwards into the Gulf of Mexico.
The cities of Durango, Fresnillo, Matehuala, and Rioverde are in the ecoregion.
The climate is hot and dry. Rainfall is less than 500 mm per year. [2]
The characteristic vegetation is dry shrubland (matorral) that includes yucca and cactus. Characteristic species include the yuccas izote (Yucca filifera ), chocha ( Yucca carnerosana ), and Yucca decipiens , and creosote bush ( Larrea tridentata ), known in Spanish as la gobernadora. Other common species are the shrubs huisache ( Acacia farnesiana ), sangre de drago ( Jatropha dioica ), desert mimosa ( Mimosa turneri ), and mesquite ( Prosopis juliflora ), the cacti Opuntia engelmannii , Echinocactus horizonthalonius , and Echinocereus conglomeratus , and the grasses Bouteloua gracilis and hairy woollygrass ( Erioneuron pilosum ). In the northern part of the ecoregion near the transition to the Chihuahuan desert, the dominant plant community is creosote bush and hojasén ( Flourensia cernua ). [2]
Native mammals include coyote (Canis latrans), desert mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus eremicus), Mexican prairie dog (Cynomys mexicanus), yellow-faced pocket gopher (Orthogeomys spp.), and Saussure's shrew (Sorex saussurei). The ecoregion has resident and migratory bats. The greater long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris nivalis) and lesser long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris yerbabuenae) are important spring and summer pollinators for many plants, including the yuccas, agaves, and cactus. [2] The western yellow bat (Lasiurus xanthinus) is an insectivorous resident bat.
Native birds include the greater roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus), golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos canadensis), great horned owl (Bubo virginiana), spotted owl (Strix occidentalis), red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis), peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus), scaled quail (Callipepla squamata), and Worthen's sparrow (Spizella wortheni). [2]
A 2017 assessment found that 2,534 km2, or 2%, of the ecoregion is in protected areas. [1] The lower elevations of Durango's Sierra de Órganos National Park are in the ecoregion. Barranca de Metztitlán Biosphere Reserve is in the southeastern portion the ecoregion.
The Sonoran Desert is a hot desert in North America and ecoregion that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the southwestern United States. It is the hottest desert in both Mexico and the United States. It has an area of 260,000 square kilometers (100,000 sq mi).
The Chihuahuan Desert is a desert ecoregion designation covering parts of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States. It occupies much of far West Texas, the middle to lower Rio Grande Valley and the lower Pecos Valley in New Mexico, and a portion of southeastern Arizona, as well as the central and northern portions of the Mexican Plateau. It is bordered on the west by the Sonoran Desert, the Colorado Plateau, and the extensive Sierra Madre Occidental range, along with northwestern lowlands of the Sierra Madre Oriental range. Its largest, continual expanse is located in Mexico, covering a large portion of the state of Chihuahua, along with portions of Coahuila, north-eastern Durango, the extreme northern part of Zacatecas, and small western portions of Nuevo León. With an area of about 501,896 km2 (193,783 sq mi), it is the largest hot desert in North America. The desert is fairly young, existing for only 8000 years.
The Sierra Madre Oriental is a mountain range in northeastern Mexico. The Sierra Madre Oriental is part of the American Cordillera, a chain of mountain ranges (cordillera) that consists of an almost continuous sequence of mountain ranges that form the western "backbone" of North America, Central America, South America, and Antarctica.
The Madrean pine–oak woodlands are subtropical woodlands found in the mountains of Mexico and the southwestern United States. They are a biogeographic region of the tropical and subtropical coniferous forests and temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biomes, located in North America.
Matorral is a Spanish word, along with tomillares, for shrubland, thicket or bushes. It is used in naming and describing a Mediterranean climate ecosystem in Southern Europe.
The Sierra de la Laguna dry forests are a subtropical dry forest ecoregion of the southern Baja California Peninsula in Mexico.
The Sierra Madre Occidental pine–oak forests are a Temperate broadleaf and mixed forests ecoregion of the Sierra Madre Occidental range from the southwest USA region to the western part of Mexico. They are home to a large number of endemic plants and important habitat for wildlife.
Aridoamerica denotes an ecological region spanning Northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States, defined by the presence of the culturally significant staple foodstuff Phaseolus acutifolius, a drought-resistant bean. Its dry, arid climate and geography stand in contrast to the verdant Mesoamerica of present-day central Mexico into Central America to the south and east, and the higher, milder "island" of Oasisamerica to the north. Aridoamerica overlaps with both.
The Central Mexican Plateau, also known as the Mexican Altiplano, is a large arid-to-semiarid plateau that occupies much of northern and central Mexico. Averaging 1,825 m (5,988 ft) above sea level, it extends from the United States border in the north to the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt in the south, and is bounded by the Sierra Madre Occidental and Sierra Madre Oriental to the west and east, respectively.
The Tamaulipan matorral is an ecoregion in the deserts and xeric shrublands biome on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Madre Oriental range in northeastern Mexico. It is a transitional ecoregion between the Tamaulipan mezquital and the Sierra Madre Oriental pine-oak forests to the west and the Veracruz moist forests to the south.
The Tamaulipan mezquital is a deserts and xeric shrublands ecoregion in the Southern United States and northeastern Mexico. It covers an area of 141,500 km2 (54,600 sq mi), encompassing a portion of the Gulf Coastal Plain in southern Texas, northern Tamaulipas, northeastern Coahuila, and part of Nuevo León.
The Gulf of California xeric scrub is a xeric shrubland ecoregion of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula.
The San Lucan xeric scrub is a xeric shrubland ecoregion of the southernmost Baja California Peninsula, in Los Cabos Municipality and eastern La Paz Municipality of southern Baja California Sur state, Mexico.
The Balsas dry forests is a tropical dry broadleaf forest ecoregion located in western and central Mexico.
The Tehuacán Valley matorral is a xeric shrubland ecoregion, of the deserts and xeric shrublands biome, located in eastern Central Mexico.
The Chilean Matorral (NT1201) is a terrestrial ecoregion of central Chile, located on the west coast of South America. It is in the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome, part of the Neotropical realm.
The Central Mexican matorral is an ecoregion of the deserts and xeric shrublands biome of central Mexico. It is the southernmost ecoregion of the Nearctic realm.
The Bajío dry forests is a tropical dry broadleaf forest ecoregion in western−central Mexico.
The Sierra del Carmen, also called the Sierra Maderas del Carmen, is a northern finger of the Sierra Madre Oriental in the state of Coahuila, Mexico. The Sierra begins at the Rio Grande at Big Bend National Park and extends southeast for about 72 kilometres (45 mi), reaching a maximum elevation of 2,720 metres (8,920 ft). Part of the Sierra del Carmen is protected in the Maderas del Carmen Biosphere Reserve as part of a bi-national effort to conserve a large portion of the Chihuahua Desert in Mexico and Texas.
The Chiapas Depression dry forests form one of the ecoregions that belong to the tropical and subtropical dry broadleaf forests biome, as defined by the World Wildlife Fund, in northwestern Central America.
