The realm also includes temperate southern South America. In contrast, the Neotropical Floristic Kingdom excludes southernmost South America, which instead is placed in the Antarctic kingdom.
The Neotropic is delimited by similarities in faunaorflora. Its fauna and flora are distinct from the Nearctic realm (which includes most of North America) because of the long separation of the two continents. The formation of the Isthmus of Panama joined the two continents two to three million years ago, precipitating the Great American Interchange, an important biogeographical event.
The Neotropic includes more tropical rainforest (tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests) than any other realm, extending from southern Mexico through Central America and northern South America to southern Brazil, including the vast Amazon rainforest. These rainforest ecoregions are one of the most important reserves of biodiversity on Earth. These rainforests are also home to a diverse array of indigenous peoples, who to varying degrees persist in their autonomous and traditional cultures and subsistence within this environment. The number of these peoples who are as yet relatively untouched by external influences continues to decline significantly, however, along with the near-exponential expansion of urbanization, roads, pastoralism and forest industries which encroach on their customary lands and environment. Nevertheless, amidst these declining circumstances this vast "reservoir" of human diversity continues to survive, albeit much depleted. In South America alone, some 350–400 indigenous languages and dialects are still living (down from an estimated 1,500 at the time of first European contact), in about 37 distinct language families and a further number of unclassified and isolate languages. Many of these languages and their cultures are also endangered. Accordingly, conservation in the Neotropical realm is a hot political concern, and raises many arguments about development versus indigenous versus ecological rights and access to or ownership of natural resources.
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) subdivides the realm into bioregions, defined as "geographic clusters of ecoregions that may span several habitat types, but have strong biogeographic affinities, particularly at taxonomic levels higher than the species level (genus, family)."
The Central Andes lie between the Gulfs of Guayaquil and Penas and thus encompass southern Ecuador, Chile, Peru, western Bolivia, and northwest and western Argentina.[2]
Eastern South America includes the Caatingaxeric shrublands of northeastern Brazil, the broad Cerrado grasslands and savannas of the Brazilian Plateau, and the Pantanal and Chaco grasslands. The diverse Atlantic forests of eastern Brazil are separated from the forests of Amazonia by the Caatinga and Cerrado, and are home to a distinct flora and fauna.
North of the Gulf of Guayaquil in Ecuador and Colombia, a series of accreted oceanic terranes (discrete allochthonous fragments) have developed that constitute the Baudo, or Coastal, Mountains and the Cordillera Occidental.[3]
The Orinoco is a region of humid forested broadleaf forest and wetland primarily comprising the drainage basin for the Orinoco River and other adjacent lowland forested areas. This region includes most of Venezuela and parts of Colombia, as well as Trinidad and Tobago.
South America was originally part of the supercontinent of Gondwana, which included Africa, Australia, India, New Zealand, and Antarctica, and the Neotropic shares many plant and animal lineages with these other continents, including marsupial mammals and the Antarctic flora.
After the final breakup of the Gondwana about 110 million years ago, South America was separated from Africa and drifted north and west. 66 million years ago, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event altered local flora and fauna.[4][5] Much later, about two to three million years ago, South America was joined with North America by the formation of the Isthmus of Panama, which allowed a biotic exchange between the two continents, the Great American Interchange. South American species like the ancestors of the Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana) and the armadillo moved into North America, and North Americans like the ancestors of South America's camelids, including the llama (Lama glama), moved south. The long-term effect of the exchange was the extinction of many South American species, mostly by outcompetition by northern species.
The Neotropical realm has 31 endemic bird families, which is over twice the number of any other realm. They include tanagers, rheas, tinamous, curassows, antbirds, ovenbirds, toucans, and seriemas. Bird families originally unique to the Neotropics include hummingbirds (family Trochilidae) and wrens (family Troglodytidae).
Mammal groups originally unique to the Neotropics include:
The Neotropical realm has 63 endemic fish families and subfamilies, which is more than any other realm.[6]Neotropical fishes include more than 5,700 species, and represent at least 66 distinct lineages in continental freshwaters (Albert and Reis, 2011). The well-known red-bellied piranha is endemic to the Neotropic realm, occupying a larger geographic area than any other piranha species. Some fish groups originally unique to the Neotropics include:
^van der Sleen, Peter, and James S. Albert, eds. (2018) Field Guide to the Fishes of the Amazon, Orinoco, and Guianas. Princeton University Press, 2017. ISBN9780691170749
^Тахтаджян А. Л. Флористические области Земли / Академия наук СССР. Ботанический институт им. В. Л. Комарова. — Л.: Наука, Ленинградское отделение, 1978. — 247 с. — 4000 экз. DjVu, Google Books.
^Takhtajan, A. (1986). Floristic Regions of the World. (translated by T.J. Crovello & A. Cronquist). University of California Press, Berkeley, PDF, DjVu.
Bequaert, Joseph C. "An Introductory Study of Polistes in the United States and Canada with Descriptions of Some New North and South American Forms (Hymenoptera; Vespidæ)". Journal of the New York Entomological Society 48.1 (1940): 1-31.
Cox, C. B.; P. D. Moore (1985). Biogeography: An Ecological and Evolutionary Approach (Fourth Edition). Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford.
Olson, D. M., B. Chernoff, G. Burgess, I. Davidson, P. Canevari, E. Dinerstein, G. Castro, V. Morisset, R. Abell, and E. Toledo. 1997. Freshwater biodiversity of Latin America and the Caribbean: a conservation assessment. Draft report. World Wildlife Fund-U.S., Wetlands International, Biodiversity Support Program, and United States Agency for International Development, Washington, D.C.
Reis, R. E., S. O. Kullander, and C. J. Ferraris Jr. 2003. Check List of the Freshwater Fishes of South and Central America. Edipucrs, Porto Alegre. 729 pp.
