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On top of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Maria mountain range in Northern Colombia, between 10,800 and 14,800 feet (3292 and 4511 m), the humid Santa Marta Páramo ecoregion covers the mountaintops. Páramo is a Spanish word meaning high mountain plateau, and in these regions, high altitude bunchgrass fields and thicket habitats are dotted with bog and marsh communities. Grasses dominate the region, blowing in the mountain breezes like ribbons of green and gold. Cushion plants carpet the soil and unusual rosette plants stand out above the grasses, framed with short bamboo, sedges, and the red and orange spikes of bromeliads. Terrestrial orchids bloom in splotches of magenta, tangerine, and violet against a bright green canvas of ferns.
These huge mountains rise from the tropical Caribbean coast of Colombia to form snow-covered peaks that are geographically isolated from the rest of the Andes. The isolation of this páramo has created a montane refuge with high levels of endemism, including two genera of butterflies, a frog genus, several species of mammal and birds, and a plethora of plants. All species in the páramo habitat experience extreme and rapid temperature changes, as well as high humidity and wind. The temperature here averages 45° F (7.2° C), with approximately 50 inches (1250 mm) of precipitation each year. Fog and mist saturate the air, and during the rainy season, depressions become acid bogs. A thick mat of sponge-like, highly absorbent mosses, grasses, and shrubs of the heath family grow in the wet soil.
Red and yellow flowers burst from a carpet of glistening moss, their petals wet with rain. A bearded helmetcrest, a characteristic páramo hummingbird, shakes off the morning dew and zooms off in search of small insects, while a group of páramo seed-eaters (birds) picks through the wet moss for fallen seeds. A small páramo brocket deer nibbles on blueberry-like shrubs, as an endemic Santa Marta wren alights on a rosette-like espeletia plant. High above, a royal eagle soars past a giant Andean condor as both birds take advantage of a break in the clouds to look for food on the sparse ground below--rodents in the case of the eagle and carrion in the case of the condor. An endemic hummingbird, the Santa Marta sabrewing, shares a flowering shrub with numerous butterflies and bumblebees. A South American climbing páramo mouse, another endemic species, scurries along the ground in search of small seeds to eat and plant material to build a nest. At lower elevations, where the páramo makes a transition to elfin forest, a mountain tapir suspiciously sniffs the fresh tracks of a spectacled bear.
Areas of severe erosion stretch across the landscape like fresh scars where intensive cattle ranching has stripped the soil of moss and grasses. Smoke fills the air as tracts of land are burned for conversion to agriculture, causing an exodus of butterflies whose bright wings flutter against the flames. Near the burn site, introduced exotic species spread in all directions, displacing the native species. For more information on this ecoregion, go to the World Wildlife Fund Scientific Report. All text by World Wildlife Fund © 2001
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