Abstract
This paper describes the unique natural communities and biodiversity of the upwelling coastal system along the Guajira peninsula in the southern Caribbean Sea. The Guajira peninsula has a small human population with limited infrastructure and limited opportunities for coastal research, yet its coastal upwelling system is unique in the Tropical Western Atlantic region. This report includes both field observations along with a review of literature on the biodiversity of coastal eastern Guajira. In addition, it identifies missing information on the coastal system that is key to its management and conservation. Mangrove wetlands along with submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) communities in a combination of consolidated and unconsolidated shorelines (e.g., rocky shores, cliffs, and beaches) form unique habitats in eastern Guajira. The diversity of these habitats is illustrated with the Bahia Hondita marine lagoon, where critical nursery habitat for several commercial valuable and endangered fisheries species, including sharks and sea turtles, is observed. Less information is available on more cryptic fauna, invertebrates, and coastal plankton species. Several anthropogenic factors are threatening species diversity in coastal Guajira, including overgrazing, mining, and target-species overfishing. Additional threats, such as extreme weather events (e.g., storms and droughts) as well as changes in coastal water quality, are also impacting species. The protection of the Guajira’s biodiversity would depend on local communities’ governance and empowerment as well as law enforcement for mining and agriculture operations. Management plans can include reducing land-based sources of pollution and building coastal resilience for climate change.
Highlights
The tropical Western Atlantic (TWA) province includes both an insular component and a continental component including portions of both Central andSouth America
Connected to the large biodiversity in the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia is the occurrence of a yearly coastal upwelling system, the Southern Caribbean Upwelling System (SCUS), which provides nutrients that power primary productivity [5]
Pollution and marine resource exploitation have caused ecosystems’ degradation, the endangerment of species, and the loss of habitat. These anthropogenic activities are associated with the primary economic activities of the ecoregion, in the southern portion by the coastlines of Colombia and Venezuela, such as oil extraction, port development and tourism, and agriculture, among others [6,9]
Summary
The tropical Western Atlantic (TWA) province includes both an insular component (eastern Caribbean) and a continental component including portions of both Central and. The SCUS is probably the main source of the nutrients that support biological productivity in the oligotrophic Caribbean Sea and constitutes a priority coastal system for research and conservation of biodiversity in the TWA [2,5] This ecoregion, has high human coastal population densities, a long history of anthropogenic pressure upon its marine resources, and significant levels of land and water pollution [3,6,7,8]. The coast of the Guajira peninsula is a species-rich, ecologically complex area in Colombia, southern Caribbean Sea, with a remarkable diversity of marine natural communities [10,16,17,18]. This biodiversity is still far from fully known and classified. 63–65 W) in the Central Caribbean Ecoregion (14 31 19 N, −75 49 3 W) of the Tropical Western Atlantic
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