Caribbean bioregion

The Caribbean bioregion is a biogeographic region that includes the islands of the Caribbean Sea, which share a fauna, flora and mycobiota distinct from surrounding bioregions.

The Caribbean bioregion, as described by the World Wildlife Fund, includes the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica), the Lesser Antilles, the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands, and Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao. It does not include Trinidad and Tobago; these islands rest on South America's shallow continental shelf, and have been historically part of the South American continent.

The climate of the ecoregion is tropical, and varies from humid to arid. Geology and topography also vary, with larger mountainous islands of continental rock, volcanic islands, and low-lying coral and limestone islands. The bioregion includes tropical moist forests, tropical dry forests, tropical pine forests, flooded grasslands and savannas, xeric shrublands, and mangroves.

The Caribbean bioregion's distinct fauna, flora and mycobiota was shaped by long periods of physical separation from the neighboring continents, allowing animals, fungi and plants to evolve in isolation. Other animals, fungi and plants arrived via long-distance oceanic dispersal or island hopping from North America and South America.

...
Wikipedia