The karstlands of Trinidad and Tobago, their land use and conservation

Abstract

The karst landscapes of Trinidad and Tobago, although restricted in area, present a previously undocumented array of tropical karst landforms, including karren, caves, springs, valley systems, and a range of dolines or sinkholes, including an area of polygonal cockpit karst. The karstlands are located primarily in the Northern and Central Ranges of Trinidad and in the southwestern portion of Tobago, and they have developed on carbonate rocks ranging in age from Jurassic to Quaternary. Associated with them is a range of vegetation types and faunal communities, many of which have been much altered by human land management, including forestry and agriculture. Quarrying has destroyed much of the karst in the western part of Trinidad, and urban development and tourism have taken their toll too, especially in the Lowlands of western Tobago. Little of the karst is incorporated within existing protected areas.

Widespread intraspecific organismal stoichiometry among populations of the Trinidadian guppy

“…In general guppies from each slope represent a different lineage, but guppies from the Turure River (East Slope) derive from the Caroni (South Slope) lineage (Suk & Neff 2009). A few rivers in Trinidad have limestone complexes (or ‘tufta’) that correlate with increased adsorption of P from the water column, potentially inducing P limitation in stream algae (Wetzel 2001; Day & Chenoweth 2004). In this study, guppy predation pairs were sampled from the Guanapo and Arima Rivers (Caroni lineage and drainage), the Aripo River (Caroni lineage and drainage, moderate limestone complexes), the Marianne River (North Slope lineage and drainage), the Quare River (Oropouche lineage and drainage, moderate limestone complexes) and the Turure River (Caroni lineage, Oropouche drainage, extensive limestone complexes in the LP site, but not in the HP site).…”

Detailed maps of tropical forest types are within reach: Forest tree communities for Trinidad and Tobago mapped with multiseason Landsat and multiseason fine-resolution imagery

“…The Southern Range is a series of hills that rise to about 280 m. Soils of these hills and of the southern lowlands have formed mainly over sandstones and siltstones. Southwestern Trinidad is mainly marine sedimentary (Donovan, 1994;Day and Chenoweth, 2004).…”

Protection of Karst Landscapes in the Developing World: Lessons from Central America, the Caribbean, and Southeast Asia

“…In Northern Trinidad, seven karst areas are incorporated into forest reserves, totaling about 60 km 2 (Day and Chenoweth 2004). Notable karst is present in the St. David, Matura and Valencia Forest Reserves.…”