paramo

[American Spanish páramo, from Spanish, wasteland.]

A biological community, essentially a grassland, covering extensive high areas in equatorial mountains of the Western Hemisphere. Geographically, paramos are limited to the Northern Andes and adjacent mountains. Paramos occur in alpine regions above timberline and are controlled by a complex of climatic and soil factors peculiar to mountains near the Equator. The richly diverse flora and the fauna of the paramos are adapted to severely cold, mostly wet conditions. Humans have found some paramos suitable for living and use.