Pollen-based differentiation of Amazonian rainforest communities and implications for lowland palaeoecology in tropical South America

Burn, Michael J.; Mayle, Francis E.; Killeen, Timothy J.

doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2010.05.009

Cited by 49 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…In support of the latter explanation, wind-pollinated grass species have been observed in some cases to be overrepresented by pollen data compared to floodplain tree species, which can have low pollen dispersal rates (Burn et al, 2010;Bush, 2002). Moreover, there is strong evidence that floodplain trees formed a fringing community on the lake shores (Whitney et al, 2011), suggesting the leaf wax δ 13 C signal was likely dominated by floodplain tree input due to their proximity to the lake.…”

Section: Past Vegetation Change At Llgmentioning

confidence: 97%

Late Quaternary environmental change in the interior South American tropics: new insight from leaf wax stable isotopes

Fornace

Whitney

Galy

et al. 2016

Earth and Planetary Science Letters

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Section: Past Vegetation Change At Llgmentioning

confidence: 97%

Late Quaternary environmental change in the interior South American tropics: new insight from leaf wax stable isotopes

Fornace

Whitney

Galy

et al. 2016

Earth and Planetary Science Letters

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“…The increase in fire activity during this period occurs prior to the shift to drier regional climate conditions, suggesting pre-Columbian fire management continued to be the dominant driver of fire activity at LC. The continued presence of rainforest taxa (∼35 to >40%) (Burn et al, 2010), despite the progressive increase in pre-Columbian activity in the region indicates large-scale deforestation did not occur around the lake. This interpretation is supported by the synchronous declines in MS values, indicating reduced erosion, which would be expected to increase in a large-scale land clearance scenario (Barlow and Peres, 2008).…”

Section: Pre-columbian Fire Management In the Eastern Amazonmentioning

confidence: 99%

New Insights From Pre-Columbian Land Use and Fire Management in Amazonian Dark Earth Forests

et al. 2018

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Anthropogenic climate change driven by increased carbon emissions is leading to more severe fire seasons and increasing the frequency of mega-fires in the Amazon. This has the potential to convert Amazon forests from net carbon sinks to net carbon sources. Although modern human influence over the Earth is substantial, debate remains over when humans began to dominate Earth's natural systems. To date, little is known about the history of human land use in key regions like the Amazon. Here, we examine the history of human occupation from a ∼8,500 year-old sediment core record from Lake Caranã (LC) in the eastern Amazon. The onset of pre-Columbian activity at LC (∼4,500 cal yr B.P.) is associated with the beginning of fire management and crop cultivation, later followed by the formation of Amazonian Dark Earth soils (ADEs) ∼2,000 cal yr B.P. Selective forest enrichment of edible plants and low-severity fire activity altered the composition and structure of forests growing on ADEs (ADE forests) making them more drought susceptible and fire-prone. Following European colonization (1661 A.D.), the Amazon rubber boom (mid-1800s to 1920 A.D.) is associated with record-low fire activity despite drier regional climate, indicating fire exclusion. The formation of FLONA Reserve in 1974 A.D. is accompanied by the relocation of traditional populations and a fire suppression policy. Despite suppression efforts, biomass burning and fire severity in the past decade is higher than any other period in the record. This is attributed to combined climate and human factors which create optimal conditions for mega-fires in ADE forests and threatens to transform the Amazon from a net carbon sink to a net carbon source. To help mitigate the occurrence of mega-fires, a fire management policy reducing fire-use and careful fire management for farming may help to reduce fuel loads and the occurrence of mega-fires in fire-prone ADE forests. As both natural and anthropogenic pressures are projected to increase in the Amazon, this study provides valuable insights into the legacy of past human land use on modern ADE forest composition, structure, and flammability that can inform ecological benchmarks and future management efforts in the eastern Amazon.

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“…However, despite this floodwater input, we found that the surface-sediment pollen assemblages of both lakes were dominated by taxa indicative of the terra firme humid evergreen rainforest that covers the PCS. Our interpretation is based upon extensive modern pollen rain studies conducted in the Bolivian Amazon, which enabled us to distinguish between the characteristic pollen signatures of savanna, seasonally dry tropical forest, and humid evergreen rainforest (34)(35)(36)(37). Most of the pollen entering the two lakes must therefore originate via wind dispersal from the vegetation of the PCS, with only a background input from the Beni basin and riverine flood waters.…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental impact of geometric earthwork construction in pre-Columbian Amazonia

Carson

Whitney

Mayle

et al. 2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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There is considerable controversy over whether pre-Columbian (pre-A.D. 1492) Amazonia was largely "pristine" and sparsely populated by slash-and-burn agriculturists, or instead a densely populated, domesticated landscape, heavily altered by extensive deforestation and anthropogenic burning. The discovery of hundreds of large geometric earthworks beneath intact rainforest across southern Amazonia challenges its status as a pristine landscape, and has been assumed to indicate extensive pre-Columbian deforestation by large populations. We tested these assumptions using coupled local-and regional-scale paleoecological records to reconstruct land use on an earthwork site in northeast Bolivia within the context of regional, climate-driven biome changes. This approach revealed evidence for an alternative scenario of Amazonian land use, which did not necessitate labor-intensive rainforest clearance for earthwork construction. Instead, we show that the inhabitants exploited a naturally open savanna landscape that they maintained around their settlement despite the climatically driven rainforest expansion that began ∼2,000 y ago across the region. Earthwork construction and agriculture on terra firme landscapes currently occupied by the seasonal rainforests of southern Amazonia may therefore not have necessitated large-scale deforestation using stone tools. This finding implies far less labor-and potentially lower population densitythan previously supposed. Our findings demonstrate that current debates over the magnitude and nature of pre-Columbian Amazonian land use, and its impact on global biogeochemical cycling, are potentially flawed because they do not consider this land use in the context of climate-driven forest-savanna biome shifts through the mid-to-late Holocene.paleoecology | Amazonian archaeology | human-environment interactions | Anthropocene | Amazon rainforest

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Pollen-based differentiation of Amazonian rainforest communities and implications for lowland palaeoecology in tropical South America

Cited by 49 publications

References 50 publications

Late Quaternary environmental change in the interior South American tropics: new insight from leaf wax stable isotopes

Late Quaternary environmental change in the interior South American tropics: new insight from leaf wax stable isotopes

New Insights From Pre-Columbian Land Use and Fire Management in Amazonian Dark Earth Forests

Environmental impact of geometric earthwork construction in pre-Columbian Amazonia

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