Atlantic moist forests

Atlantic Forest (Mata Atlântica)
Forest
Atlantic Forest in Serra do Mar.
Countries	Brazil,  Paraguay,  Argentina
Part of	South America
River	Paraná River
Area	1,315,460 km2 (507,902 sq mi)
Map of the Atlantic Forest ecoregions as delineated by the WWF. Yellow line approximately encloses the Atlantic Forest distribution. Satellite image from NASA.
UNESCO World Heritage Site
Official name	Discovery Coast Atlantic Forest Reserves
Criteria	Natural: (ix), (x)
Reference	892
Inscription	1999 (23rd Session)
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The Atlantic Forest (Portuguese: Mata Atlântica) is a South American forest which extends along the Atlantic coast of Brazil from Rio Grande do Norte state in the north to Rio Grande do Sul state in the south, and inland as far as Paraguay and the Misiones Province of Argentina, where the region is known as Selva Misionera.

The Atlantic Forest has ecoregions within the following biome categories: seasonal moist and dry broad-leaf tropical forests, tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands, and mangrove forests. The Atlantic Forest is characterized by a high species diversity and endemism.

It was the first environment that the Portuguese colonizers encountered over 500 years ago, when it was thought to have had an area of 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 km² (390,000 to 580,000 sq mi), and stretching an unknown distance inland. Over 85% of the original area has been deforested, threatening many plants and animals with extinction

The Atlantic Forest region includes forests of several variations:

The Atlantic Forest is unusual in that it extends as a true tropical forest to latitudes as far as 24°S. This is because the trade winds produce precipitation throughout the southern winter. In fact, the northern Zona da Mata of northeastern Brazil receives much more rainfall between May and August than during the southern summer. The Atlantic forest is a rain forest.

During glacial periods in the , the Atlantic Forest is known to have shrunk to extremely small fragmented refugia in highly sheltered gullies, being separated by areas of dry forest or semi-deserts known as caatingas. Some maps even suggest the forest actually survived in moist pockets well away from the coastline where its endemic rainforest species mixed with much cooler-climate species. Unlike refugia for equatorial rainforests, the refuges for the Atlantic Forest have never been the product of detailed identification.