Legacies of intensive management in forests around pre-columbian and modern settlements in the Madeira-Tapajós interfluve, Amazonia

Ferreira, Maria Júlia; Levis, Carolina; Iriarte, José; Clement, Charles R.

doi:10.1590/0102-33062018abb0339

Cited by 13 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…The predominant idea among archaeologists regarding ecological legacies is that useful species were deliberately enriched or depleted in the pre-Columbian era, and that those altered abundances have persisted until the modern era (Ferreira et al, 2019;Levis et al, 2012Levis et al, , 2017; Figure 1). Under this scenario, useful or domesticated species in the Lake Kumpak a sediment record should have flourished during the peak of maize cultivation and show persistently elevated abundances even after the cessation of cultivation (direct and persistent enrichment; Figure 1a).…”

Section: Ecological Legaciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Considerable disagreement exists regarding the scale of these transformations both in space and time (Bush et al., 2015; Clement et al., 2015; Ferreira, Levis, Iriarte, & Clement, 2019; Levis et al., 2017; Maezumi et al., 2018; McMichael & Bush, 2019; McMichael, Feeley, Dick, Piperno, & Bush, 2017; Piperno, McMichael, & Bush, 2019; Stahl, 2015). But regardless of the spatial and temporal scale of these modifications, the arrival of Europeans brought enslavement, maltreatment and novel diseases to a susceptible population.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Long‐term ecological legacies in western Amazonia

et al. 2020

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1. Modifications of Amazonian forests by pre-Columbian peoples are thought to have left ecological legacies that have persisted to the modern day. Most Amazonian palaeoecological records do not, however, provide the required temporal resolution to document the nuanced changes of pre-Columbian disturbance or postdisturbance succession and recovery, making it difficult to detect any direct, or indirect, ecological legacies on tree species. 2. Here, we investigate the fossil pollen, phytolith and charcoal history of Lake Kumpak a , Ecuador, during the last 2,415 years in c. 3-50 year time intervals to assess ecological legacies resulting from pre-Columbian forest modification, disturbance, cultivation and fire usage. 3. Two cycles of pre-Columbian cultivation (one including slash-and-burn cultivation, the other including slash-and-mulch cultivation) were documented in the record around 2150-1430 cal. year BP and 1250-680 cal. year BP, with following postdisturbance succession dynamics. Modern disturbance was documented after c. 10 cal. year BP. The modern disturbance produced a plant composition unlike those of the two past disturbances, as fire frequencies reached their peak in the 2,415-year record. The disturbance periods varied in intensity and duration, while the overturn of taxa following a disturbance lasted for hundreds of years. The recovery periods following pre-Columbian disturbance shared some similar patterns of early succession, but the longer-term recovery patterns differed. 4. Synthesis. The trajectories of change after a cessation of cultivation can be anticipated to differ depending on the intensity, scale, duration and manner of the past disturbance. In the Kumpak a record, no evidence of persistent enrichment or depletion of intentionally altered taxa (i.e. direct legacy effects) was found but indirect legacy effects, however, were documented and have persisted to the modern day. These findings highlight the strengths of using empirical data to reconstruct past change rather than relying solely on modern plant populations to infer past human management and ecological legacies, and challenge some of the current hypotheses involving the persistence of pre-Columbian legacies on modern plant populations. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Section: Ecological Legaciesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long‐term ecological legacies in western Amazonia

et al. 2020

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“…However, using indices from satellite imagery, (Palace et al 2017) found that biomass, tree height and tree cover are lower in forests located on ADE than random forest sites within 50 km of ADE. Since we worked no more than 4 km from ADE (see also (Ferreira et al 2019), we found small-scale differences in forest structure that may be difficult to detect using only satellite data. The forest on top of ADE had an extremely high value of stand basal area (48 m 2 /ha) compared to our other study plots (Table S4) and other plots elsewhere across Amazonia (Baker et al 2004), driven mainly by two individuals of sumaúma (Ceiba pentandra), which is an indicator of ADE (Clement et al 2003).…”

Section: Effects Of Pre-columbian and Current Landscape Domesticationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Signs of landscape domestication can also be detected by assessing the distribution and abundance of useful, managed and/or domesticated species (Clement and Cassino 2018), as observed in Central Amazonia (Levis et al 2012;Ferreira et al 2019), Western Amazonia (Franco- Moraes et al 2019) and across the Amazon basin (Levis et al 2017). At least 85 arboreal species, mostly used for food, have populations domesticated to some degree by pre-Columbian peoples in Amazonia (Levis et al 2017), and they are concentrated in and around settlements due to numerous historical management practices (Levis et al 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pre-Columbian soil fertilization and current management maintain food resource availability in old-growth Amazonian forests

et al. 2020

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Aims The extent and persistence of pre-Columbian human legacies in old-growth Amazonian forests are still controversial, partly because modern societies reoccupied old settlements, challenging the distinction between pre-and post-Columbian legacies. Here, we compared the effects of pre-Columbian vs. recent landscape domestication processes on soils and vegetation in two Amazonian regions. Methods We studied forest landscapes at varying distances from pre-Columbian and current settlements inside protected areas occupied by traditional and indigenous peoples in the lower Tapajós and the upper-middle Madeira river basins. By conducting 69 free-listing interviews, participatory mappings, guided-tours, 27 forest inventories, and soil analysis, we assessed the influences of pre-Columbian and current activities in soils and plant resources surrounding the settlements.

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“…In other settings, where pre-Columbian people practiced slash-and-burn agriculture or set fires to improve hunting, there can be long histories of land use through burning (Bush et al, 2008;Maezumi et al, 2018). Considerable discussion surrounds the spatial scale of such forest modification with some arguing for all of Amazonian forest being heavily modified by human actions (Clement et al, 2015;Ferreira et al, 2019). Another view is that many rivers and lakes were prime occupational settings and were modified by crop cultivation, timber removal, and enrichment with palms .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

New and Repeating Tipping Points: The Interplay of Fire, Climate Change, and Deforestation in Neotropical Ecosystems

Bush

2020

annals

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A 370,000-year paleoecological history of fire spanning four glacial cycles provides evidence of plant migration in response to Andean climate change. Charcoal, an indicator of fire, is only occasionally observed in this record, whereas it is ubiquitous in Holocene-aged Andean records. Fire is a transformative agent in Amazonian and Andean vegetation but is shown to be rare in nature. As humans promote fire, fire-free areas become microrefugia for fire-sensitive species. A distinction is drawn between microrefugia resulting from fire-free zones and those caused by unusual climatic conditions. The importance of this distinction lies in the lack of warmer-than-modern microrefugia aiding upslope migration in response to warming, whereas fire-free microrefugia support tree species above modern tree line or in areas of Amazonia least used by humans. The synergy between fire, deforestation, and climate change could promote a state-change in the ecosystem, one where new microrefugia would be needed to maintain biodiversity. Past tipping points are identified to have occurred within ca. 1°C–1.5°C of modern conditions. The recent climatic instability in both Amazonia and the Andes is viewed in the context of ecological flickering, while the drought-induced and fire-induced tree mortality are aspects of critical slowing down; both possibly portending an imminent tipping point.

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Legacies of intensive management in forests around pre-columbian and modern settlements in the Madeira-Tapajós interfluve, Amazonia

Cited by 13 publications

References 45 publications

Long‐term ecological legacies in western Amazonia

Long‐term ecological legacies in western Amazonia

Pre-Columbian soil fertilization and current management maintain food resource availability in old-growth Amazonian forests

New and Repeating Tipping Points: The Interplay of Fire, Climate Change, and Deforestation in Neotropical Ecosystems

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