Sierra Madre de Oaxaca pine-oak forests

Sierra Madre de Oaxaca pine-oak forests
Cerro San Felipe, located in the Parque Nacional Benito Juarez is the only federally protected area of the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca, and is important as the watersource for the city of Oaxaca
Ecology
Biome	Tropical and subtropical coniferous forests
Borders	Tehuacan Valley matorral Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt pine-oak forests Oaxacan montane forests Peten-Veracruz moist forests Southern Pacific dry forests Sierra Madre del Sur pine-oak forests Balsas dry forests
Bird species	447
Mammal species	176
Geography
Area	14,300 km2 (5,500 sq mi)
Country	Mexico
Conservation
Habitat loss	15.078%
Protected	5.25%

The Sierra Madre de Oaxaca pine-oak forests is an ecoregion of the Tropical and subtropical coniferous forests biome, in Southern Mexico.

It occupies the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca, a mountain range which lies mostly within the state of Oaxaca, and extends north into Puebla and Veracruz states. It is one of a chain of pine-oak forest ecoregions extending along the American Cordillera from Oregon and California in the north to Nicaragua in the south.

The ecoregion covers an area of 14,300 square kilometers (5,500 sq mi), lying above 1,600 metres (5,200 ft) elevation. The Sierra Madre de Oaxaca runs northeast-southwest, extending 300 kilometres (190 mi) from Pico de Orizaba in the northeast to extends to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in the southeast. Peaks in the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca average 2,500 metres (8,200 ft) meters in elevation, with some peaks exceeding 3,000 metres (9,800 ft). The range intercepts humid air moving west from the Gulf of Mexico.

The Gulf Coastal Plain lies to the east, and a series of river valleys separate the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca from the Sierra Madre del Sur to the southwest and the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt to the northwest. The ecoregion is bounded on the east by the humid Oaxacan montane forests, which lie below 1,600 metres (5,200 ft) elevation. To the east, the xeric Tehuacan Valley matorral occupies the Tehuacan valley to the northwest, the Jalisco dry forests occupy the upper basin of the Santo Domingo River, which lies in the rain shadow of the Sierra, and the Southern Pacific dry forests lie to the south along the Pacific coast, extending into the upper basin of the Tehuantepec River and the Valley of Oaxaca. The dry forests separate the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca pine-oak forests from the Sierra Madre del Sur pine-oak forests to the southwest.