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Human Contribution to Amazonian Plant Diversity: Legacy of Pre-Columbian Land Use in Modern Plant Communities

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Neotropical Diversification: Patterns and Processes

Part of the book series: Fascinating Life Sciences ((FLS))

Abstract

Amazonia is the world’s largest tropical forest and is globally important in terms of its ecosystem services and extraordinarily high levels of biodiversity. The origin of this biodiversity has long been attributed to purely natural drivers, with little consideration given to the legacy of millennia of human land use. Here, the potential contribution of pre-Columbian human activity (prior 1492 CE) to current patterns of plant diversity in Amazonia is explored via long-term (palaeoecology, archaeology) and short-term (botany, plant ecology) studies. The aim of the chapter is to examine the information available to date, and discuss recent advances and persisting shortcomings relevant to the extent to which pre-Columbian human societies influenced patterns of Amazonian plant diversity. This topic has been the subject of long-standing scientific debate over several decades, and among diverse disciplines. In recent years, this debate has intensified following the development of new techniques and data. The findings indicate that humans have had an impact upon Amazonian plant diversity for over 13,000 years. Late Pleistocene/early Holocene humans domesticated numerous plant species and may have inadvertently caused long-lasting ecosystem changes by contributing to Pleistocene megafauna extinction. Based on our literature review, we identify four key types of pre-Columbian anthropogenic impact, leaving a clear legacy upon current patterns of plant diversity: (1) construction of vast earthworks, which has altered forest and savannah cover through changes in micro-topography, fire use and hydrology, (2) widespread distribution and dispersal of domesticated plants, (3) the creation of exceptionally fertile, anthropogenic soils, which enabled continuous, intensive agro-forestry, and (4) the enrichment of plant communities with edible and useful species. We argue that knowledge of the degree to which humans have shaped plant diversity over the past several millennia has relevance for developing sustainable land use and improving our understanding of the likely responses of Amazonian ecosystems to environmental and anthropogenic disturbance.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Valentí Rull for the invitation to participate in the book. Encarni Montoya was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity (Juan de la Cierva Incorporación contract, ref. IJCI-2015-24273) and the Catalan Agency for Universities and Research AGAUR and the EU programme Marie Curie COFUND (Beatriu de Pinos—Marie Curie COFUND fellowship, ref.: 2014 BP-B 00094). Umberto Lombardo was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions, EU project 703045). Carolina Levis thanks CNPq for a doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships (CNPq 141652/2014-4 and 159440/2018-1). Special thanks to Hans ter Steege and Ana Carvajal for comments of an earlier version of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume Almera (ICTJA-CSIC), Barcelona, Spain

    Encarni Montoya

  2. Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Umberto Lombardo

  3. Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia – INPA, Manaus, Brazil

    Carolina Levis

  4. Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina – UFSC, Florianópolis, Brazil

    Carolina Levis

  5. UNELLEZ-Guanare, Programa de Ciencias del Agro y el Mar, Herbario Universitario (PORT), Mesa de Cavacas, Estado Portuguesa, Venezuela

    Gerardo A. Aymard

  6. Compensation International Progress S. A. – Ciprogress Greenlife, Bogotá, DC, Colombia

    Gerardo A. Aymard

  7. University of Reading, Reading, UK

    Francis E. Mayle

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  1. Encarni Montoya
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Correspondence to Encarni Montoya .

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  1. Laboratory of Paleoecology, Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume Almera (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain

    Valentí Rull

  2. Department of Biology, City College of New York, New York, NY, USA

    Ana Carolina Carnaval

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Montoya, E., Lombardo, U., Levis, C., Aymard, G.A., Mayle, F.E. (2020). Human Contribution to Amazonian Plant Diversity: Legacy of Pre-Columbian Land Use in Modern Plant Communities. In: Rull, V., Carnaval, A. (eds) Neotropical Diversification: Patterns and Processes. Fascinating Life Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31167-4_19

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