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This ecoregion is composed of the isolated montane forests (more than 1,000 m) of the Van Rees (to 1,430 m) and Gauttier (Foya) (to 2,193 m), Cyclops (to 2,158 m), Denake, Bewani (to 2,000 m), Torricelli (to 1,650 m), Prince Alexander (to 1,240 m), and Adelbert Ranges (to 1,718 m) in Irian Jaya, Indonesia and PNG. These isolated mountain ranges are all on the northern side of the Central Cordillera of the island of New Guinea. The climate of the ecoregion is tropical wet, which is characteristic of this part of Melanesia, located in the western Pacific Ocean north of Australia (National Geographic Society 1999). Northern New Guinea is a very active tectonic area with a complex geologic history (Bleeker 1983). The geology of this mountainous ecoregion is a mixture of metamorphic and Pliocene fine-grained terrestrial and marine sediments (Bleeker 1983; Petocz 1989). The vegetation of this ecoregion is generally tropical montane rain forest. Although they are subject to variable climates and topography, montane forests are smaller-crowned and have even more canopies than lowland hill forest. Tree densities can be high, and the shrub density is also high. Predominant canopy trees include Nothofagus, Lauraceae, Cunoniaceae, Elaeocarpaceae, Lithocarpus, Castanopsis, Syzygium, Illex, and southern conifers. Nothofagus and Araucaria may grow in pure, dense stands. The levels of Myrtaceae, Elaeocarpaceae, and conifers increase with altitude. The conifers generally found above 2,000 m include Dacrycarpus, Podocarpus, Phyllocladus, and Papuacedrus in the canopy and emergent layer (Paijmans 1975). The open forests of the Cyclops Mountains, perhaps the most well-studied of the ranges, are dominated by Kania, Metrrosideros, and Xanthmyrtus, with Lithocarpus and Nothofagus at higher altitudes. Above 1,400 m, conifers (Phyllocladus, Papuacedrus, Dacrydium) dominate, with Podocarpus and Rapanea (R. Johns, pers. comm., 2000). At an elevation of 1,200 m, the Foya Mountains to the west are dominated by Araucaria cunninghammii, Podocarpus neriifolius, Agathis labillardieri, Calophyllum, and Palaquium. The Torricelli, Bewani, and Prince Alexander ranges consist of limestone and montane forest (Davis et al. 1995).
Overall richness and endemism are low to moderate when compared with those of other ecoregions in Indo-Malaysia. There are fifty-one mammal species in the ecoregion, with six species that are endemic or near endemic (Flannery 1995; Flannery and Groves 1998) (table 1). The mammalian fauna consists of a wide variety of tropical Australasian marsupials, including tree kangaroos, and a glider (Flannery 1995). The Cyclops long-beaked echidna (Zaglossus attenboroughi) was considered endangered before it was split from the Papuan echidna (Zaglossus bruijnii) (IUCN 2000), and presumably would still be considered so because it is a focal prey item for humans (Flannery 1995; Flannery and Groves 1998; Bonaccorso et al., in press). The northern glider (Petaurus abidi) is found nowhere else on Earth (Ziegler 1981). The highlands of the north coastal ranges also harbor Scott's tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus scottae), reputed to be the largest and most threatened native forest mammal in PNG (Beehler 1994). Table 1. Endemic and Near-Endemic Mammal Species.
This area also provides habitat for a number of isolated and taxonomically distinct bird populations. The avifauna of the ecoregion has a clear Australasian flavor, including representatives of several Australasian families including Ptilonorhynchidae, Eopsaltridae, Meliphagidae, and Paradisaeidae. This ecoregion includes all of the North Papuan Mountains EBA and portions of the Adelbert and Huon ranges EBA (the Adelbert Mountains) and the North Papuan lowlands EBA (the Van Rees Mountains) (Stattersfield et al. 1998). The ecoregion contains twelve endemic or near-endemic birds (Beehler et al. 1986; Coates 1985) (table 2). The North Papuan mountains EBA contains five restricted-range birds, including three found nowhere else on Earth. The Adelbert Range contains three restricted-range bird species. It shares Wahnes's parotia (Parotia wahnesi) and the olive-streaked honeyeater (Ptiloprora guisei) with the mountains of the Huon Peninsula, but the fire-maned bowerbird (Sericulus bakeri) is found nowhere else on Earth but this ecoregion (Stattersfield et al. 1998). The rarest bird species in PNG, fire-maned bowerbird has the most circumscribed geographic range known for any species on mainland PNG (Miller et al. 1994). Both the fire-maned bowerbird and Wahnes's parotia (Parotia wahnesi) are considered vulnerable (IUCN 2000). Table 2. Endemic and Near-Endemic Bird Species.
Within this ecoregion, the Torricelli Range has one endemic butterfly species, making it a center of butterfly endemicity on the island of New Guinea (Parsons 1999). Several Centres of Plant Diversity correspond with the various ranges of this ecoregion, including the Mamberamo-Pegunungan Jayawijay (Van Rees and Gauttier) and Cagar Alam Pegunungan Cyclops in Irian Jaya, the Torricelli Mountains-Bewani Mountains-Prince Alexander Range in PNG, and the Adlebert Range in PNG. The Torricelli, Bewani, and Prince Alexander ranges have a flora that is estimated to exceed 2,000 species and includes the only endemic fern genus on New Guinea (Rheopteris cheesmannii) (Davis et al. 1995). Several endemic plants have been collected in the Cyclops Mountains, but in general the flora of this ecoregion is very poorly known. Ultrabasic formations are present in the Makanoi Range forests (R. Johns, pers. comm., 2000).  Current Status
Much of the topography of this ecoregion is too steep for traditional logging activities, and the majority of the ecoregion is safe because of its inaccessibility. Twenty-six percent of the ecoregion is covered by five protected areas, mostly in Irian Jaya, although almost half of the ecoregion is in PNG (MacKinnon 1997) (table 3). Table 3. WCMC (1997) Protected Areas That Overlap with the Ecoregion.
The threats to this ecoregion include the potential for commercial logging if it becomes economically viable. The Cyclops Mountains are quite close to the main population center of Irian Jaya, Jayapura, however, and these hill forests are at risk from the town and a transmigration settlement in the area (Stattersfield et al. 1998).
Using Whitmore's (1984) map of the vegetation of Malesia and MacKinnon's (1997) reconstruction of the original vegetation, we delineated the large areas of distinct habitat types as ecoregions. The tropical lowland moist and freshwater swamp forests to the north of the Central Cordillera were placed in the Northern New Guinea Lowland Rain and Freshwater Swamp Forests [AA0115], and the montane forests in the Northern New Guinea Montane Rain Forests [AA0116] (based largely on recommendations by Bob Johns, pers. comm., 1999). This ecoregion corresponds to MacKinnon's (1997) biounits P3e and P3j. Udvardy (1975) placed these ecoregions in the Papuan biogeographic province of the Oceanian Realm.
References for this ecoregion are currently consolidated in one document for the entire Indo-Pacific realm. Reviewed by: This text was originally published in the book Terrestrial ecoregions of the Indo-Pacific: a conservation assessment from Island Press. This assessment offers an in-depth analysis of the biodiversity and conservation status of the Indo-Pacific's ecoregions. For more general information on this ecoregion, go to the WildWorld version of this description. All text by World Wildlife Fund © 2001 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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