Sky island

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:For the fantasy novel by L. Frank Baum, see Sky Island.

Sky islands are mountains in ranges isolated by valleys in which other ecosystems are located. As a result, the mountain ecosystems are isolated from each other, and species can develop in parallel, as on island groups such as the Galápagos Islands.

The best known examples of sky islands are the Madrean sky islands at the northern end of the Sierra Madre Occidental in New Mexico, Arizona, Chihuahua and Sonora on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Other sky islands of note are the Great Basin montane forests of the United States' Great Basin, the Tepuis of Venezuela, Brazil, and Guyana, and in Africa. Some Asian examples include Mt. Victoria (3050 m) in central Myanmar, Fan Si Pan (3140 m) in northernmost Vietnam, and the mountains of central Taiwan; these mountains all hold isolated outposts of Palearctic flora in the otherwise tropical Indomalayan flora region.

External links

• [Sky Island Alliance homepage]
• [USGS page on Southwestern sky islands]

 

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