paramo

thumb|right|Páramos in yellow Páramo () may refer to a variety of alpine tundra ecosystems located in the Andes Mountains in South America. Some ecologists describe the páramo broadly as "all high, tropical, montane vegetation above the continuous timberline". A narrower term classifies the páramo according to its regional placement in the northern Andes of South America and adjacent southern Central America. The páramo is the ecosystem of the regions above the continuous forest line, yet below the permanent snowline. It is a "Neotropical high mountain biome with a vegetation composed mainly of giant rosette plants, shrubs and grasses". According to scientists, páramos may be "evolutionary hot spots", meaning that they are among the fastest evolving regions on Earth.

== Location == thumb|left|Sumapaz Paramo|Sumapaz Páramo The Northern Andean Páramo global ecoregion includes the Cordillera Central páramo (Ecuador, Peru), Santa Marta páramo (Colombia), Cordillera de Merida páramo (Venezuela) and Northern Andean páramo (Colombia, Ecuador) terrestrial ecoregions. The Costa Rican páramo in Costa Rica and Panama is another páramo ecoregion. In the strictest sense of the term, all páramo ecosystems are in the Neotropics, specifically South and Central America. Scattered throughout the regions between 11°N and 8°S latitudes, these ecosystems are mainly in the northwest corner of South America, in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.