Chilean Matorral

The Chilean Matorral (NT1201) is a terrestrial ecoregion of central Chile, located on the west coast of South America. It is in the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome, part of the Neotropical realm.

The matorral ecoregion is characterized by a temperate Mediterranean climate, with rainy winters and dry summers, and lies between the arid Atacama Desert and the humid Valdivian temperate forests. The ecoregion is home to diverse plant communities, including matorral or tall shrubland, forests and woodlands, savannas, and low shrubland and scrub.

The ecoregion is one of the world's five Mediterranean climate regions, which are all located in the middle latitudes on the west coast of continents. The Mediterranean Basin, the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion of California and Baja California, the Cape Province of South Africa, and Southwest Australia are the other Mediterranean-climate regions.

The Matorral occupies central Chile between 32° and 37° south latitude. The Pacific Ocean lies to the west, and the Chilean Coastal Range lies parallel to the coast. The Chilean Central Valley lies between the Coastal range and the Andes Mountains, which bound the matorral ecoregion on the east. To the north is the extremely dry Atacama desert, which separates the matorral from the tropical forests of northern South America. A semi-desert region known as El Norte Chico (the "little north") lies between 28° and 32° south latitude, and is the transition zone between the Atacama desert and the Matorral. To the south lies the cooler and wetter Valdivian temperate forests ecoregion, which includes transitional deciduous forests, including the Maulino forest of the Chilean Coast Range, along with most of South America's temperate rain forests.

The Chilean Matorral ecoregion is home to several plant communities. Semi-desert scrub is common in the north, in the transition to the arid Atacama. Matorral, woodland, forest, and savanna occur further south

The ecoregion has many endemic plant species, with affinities to the South American tropics, the Antarctic flora, and the Andes. About 95% of the plant species are endemic to Chile, including Gomortega keule, Pitavia punctata, Nothofagus alessandrii, and the Chilean wine palm, Jubaea chilensis.

Simonetti estimated that Mediterranean Chile had 200 native bird species, 37 mammals, 38 reptiles, and 12 amphibians, with 7 endemic birds, 7 endemic mammals, 31 endemic reptiles, and 6 endemic amphibians.

Endemic and near-endemic birds include the Chilean tinamou (Nothoprocta perdicaria), moustached turca (Pteroptochos megapodius), white-throated tapaculo (Scelorchilus albicollis), Ochre-flanked tapaculo (Eugralla paradoxa), crag earthcreeper (Ochetorhynchus melanurus), dusky-tailed canastero (Pseudasthenes humicola), and Chilean mockingbird (Mimus thenca). The ecoregion corresponds to the Central Chile Endemic Bird Area.