Arizona/New Mexico Plateau

Arizona/New Mexico Plateau

The Arizona/New Mexico Plateau represents a large transitional region between the drier shrublands and wooded higher relief tablelands of the Colorado Plateaus in the north, the lower, hotter, less vegetated Mojave Basin and Range in the west, and forested mountain ecoregions that border the region on the northeast and south. Local relief in the region varies from a few feet on plains and mesa tops to well over 1000 feet along tableland side slopes. The Continental Divide splits the region, but is not a prominent topographic feature. The region extends across northern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and into Colorado in the San Luis Valley.

Flora:

The San Luis Shrublands and Hills: Big sagebrush, rabbitbrush, winterfat, western wheatgrass, green needlegrass, blue grama, and needle-and-thread.

The Taos Plateau: Cottonwood, willow, coyote willow, New Mexico olive, false indigo, seepwillow, saltcedar and Russian olive.

The North Central New Mexico Valleys and Mesas: Pinon pine andjuniper savanna,

The San Juan/Chaco Tablelands and Mesas: Shadscale, fourwing saltbush, mormon tea, Indian ricegrass, galleta, and blue and black gramas.

The Semiarid Tablelands: Ponderosa pine, stunted Douglas-fir, junipers, saltbush, alkali sacaton, sand dropseed, and mixed grama grasses occur.

The Plains of San Agustin: Alkali sacaton, fourwing saltbush, greasewood, western wheatgrass, vine-mesquite, areas of blue grama sand dropseed, blue grama, dropseeds, Indian ricegrass, and bottlebrush squirrel tail grasses.

The Albuquerque Basin: Black grama, sand dropseed, mesa dropseed, blue grama, galleta, sand sage, alkali sacaton, threeawns, scattered yucca and huniper.

Near-Rockies Valleys and Mesas: Juniper.

Fauna:

Gunnison prairie dogs are a keystone species in many of the sagebrush ecosystems and their burrows provide habitat for other wildlife including burrowing owls, weasels, badgers, and a variety of snakes.