Ecological legacies of past human activities in Amazonian forests.

Crystal N.H Mcmichael

doi:10.1111/nph.16888

Abstract

SummaryIn Amazonia, human activities that occurred hundreds of years ago in the pre‐European era can leave long‐lasting effects on the forests – termed ecological legacies. These legacies include the intentional or nonintentional enrichment or depletion of certain species. The persistence of these legacies through time varies by species, and creates complex long‐term trajectories of post‐disturbance succession that affect ecosystem processes for hundreds of years. Most of our knowledge of Amazonian biodiversity and carbon storage comes from a series of several hundred forest plots, and we only know the disturbance history of four of them. More empirical data are needed to determine the degree to which past human activities and their ecological legacies affect our current understanding of Amazonian forest ecology.

Highlights

UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam Download date:02 Nov 2021
Most studies of ecological legacies on Amazonian forest composition have focused on the enrichment and long-term persistence of useful species
Amazonia provides a significant input to global carbon and climate models, and is believed to sequester more carbon than it releases

Summary

Ecological legacies on forest composition

Most studies of ecological legacies on Amazonian forest composition have focused on the enrichment and long-term persistence of useful species. 1100 forest plots in Amazonia, there were higher richnesses and abundances of domesticated tree species in locations that were closest to known pre-European archaeological sites (Levis et al, 2017). The systems are expected to continue shifting in their composition for at least 200 yr following a disturbance (Foster, 1990; Loughlin et al, 2018) These nonpersistent ecological legacies are often part of the long-term successional process. New Phytologist (2021) 229: 2492–2496 www.newphytologist.com et al, 2013) Both of these Euterpe species are useful for their fruit, but their abundances do not seem to shift drastically in response to low levels of human disturbance (Fig. 1; Heijink et al, 2020)

Ecological legacies on biomass and carbon dynamics

Findings

Outlook: advancing our knowledge of long-term ecological legacies