Biodiversity at REGUA
The Atlantic Forest is one of the main five hotspots Earth's Biodiversity [5]🇧🇷 Paleoenvironmental studies indicate that the Atlantic Forest was once contiguous with the Amazon, having separated during the Tertiary period, when a progressively more arid climate allowed the Caatinga, Cerrado and Pantanal - dominated by open herbaceous vegetation, drier and bushy – formed a formidable barrier between the two great forests [two]🇧🇷 Although the occurrence of wetter periods in the late Pleistocene and Holocene allowed the establishment of forest corridors between the Atlantic Forest and the Amazon [1] [two], for tens of thousands of years, the
Atlântica largely evolved with complete geographic isolation.
Along with a wide latitudinal distribution and a wide altitudinal range due to the mountainous topography of the region, the geographic isolation has produced a rich biodiversity, with an exceptionally high level of endemism [6]🇧🇷 The degree of Endemism of the Flora and Fauna of the Atlantic Forest is around 50%, but reaches 90% for some types of organisms [3]🇧🇷
Bio-inventories at REGUA have shown that, with its continuous forest cover, ranging from the lowland rainforest to the mountain mists at 2,000 meters above sea level, wetlands, rivers, pastures and agricultural fields, REGUA is a important area of the Atlantic Forest for biodiversity and an area of high conservation priority.
