Special Issue "Long-Term Anthropic Influences on the Diversity of Amazonian Landscapes and Biota"

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. William Balée
Department of Anthropology, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118, USA
E-Mail:
Interests: historical ecology; ethnobiology; amazonia

Dear Colleagues,

Forests and savannas of Amazonia represent intersections of nature and culture. Biological evolution and historical contingency have become intertwined in the explanation of landscapes and their attendant biota in Amazonia. Most models of explanation of species distributions across diverse Amazonian environments tend to be incomplete in one way or another. The refuge model and vicariance biogeography explain diversity by genetic drift, and mostly are different in terms of time scale. Neither considers human factors that could have affected local diversity (alpha diversity) and the diversity across disjunctive landscapes (beta diversity). In contrast to these models, historical ecology, as a research program, offers an understanding of Amazonian landscapes and biota that derives from comprehension of historical contingency and the biological preadaptations of species to human activities on the landscapes affected by those activities. Specific kinds of diversity to be examined with insights from historical ecology include heterogeneity of archaeological landscapes, variation in soil microbes due to agrarian technologies of the past (especially Amazon Dark Earths), patterned distributions of flora (both domesticated and not), and fluctuations in microfauna and other fauna due to human impacts of the past.

Prof. Dr. William Balée
Guest Editor

Submission Information

All manuscripts should be submitted to diversity@mdpi.org with a copy to the Guest Editor. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Diversity is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by MDPI.

For the first two issues, to be published in 2009 and 2010, the Article Processing Charges (APC) will be waived for well-prepared manuscripts. English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.

• historical ecology
• contingency factors
• alpha and beta diversity
• landscape heterogeneity
• agrarian technologies

Type of Paper: Article
Title: The Amazonian Formative: Crop Domestication and Anthropogenic Soils
Author: Manuel Arroyo-Kalin
Affiliation: Department of Archaeology, Durham University, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, England, UK; E-Mail: manuel.arroyo-kalin@durham.ac.uk; Tel.: +44-191-334-1152; Fax: +44-191-334-1101
Abstract: This paper examines current ideas about the Amazonian Formative through the prism of recently published evidence from archaeology, palaeoecology, botany, and molecular genetics. The paper discusses geoarchaeological evidence on Amazonian anthropogenic dark earths and advances the argument that these soils can be linked to different processes of crop adaptation and plant domestication. It is a better grasp of the timing and consequence of these latter processes, it is argued, which can help enhance our understandings of the human history of Amazonia.
Keywords: Amazonia; Formative; Anthropogenic Dark Earths; Terras pretas; Terras mulatas; Manioc; Plant Domestication; Landscape Domestication; Geoarchaeology, Soil Micromorphology; Anthropogenic Landscape Transformations; Historical Ecology

Type of Paper: Article
Title: A Contribution of the Microbial Communities from Amazonian Anthrosols for Sustainable Agriculture in the Tropics
Authors: S.M. Tsai ¹, F.C. Cannavan ¹, A.A. Navarrete ¹, R.G. Taketani ¹, F.M. Moreira ² and E. de Jesus ³
Affiliations: ¹ Cell and Molecular Biology Laboratory, Centro de Energia Nuclear na Agricultura, Universidade de São Paulo, Av. Centenário – 303, CEP. 13.416-000, Piracicaba, SP, Brazil; E-Mail: tsai@cena.usp.br
² Universidade Federal de Lavras, Departamento de Ciência do Solo, Setor de Microbiologia do Solo. Campus Universitário, 37200-000 - Lavras, MG, Brasil
³ Center for Microbial Ecology, 540 Plant and Soil Sciences Building , Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1325, USA
Abstract: The world’s greatest biodiversity is mostly retained in developing countries located in the tropics. Because of the number of species involved and the relatively low level of exploration of biodiversity in the tropics, several organisms still remain to be discovered and explored in terms of genetics and genomics, mainly for a better understanding of our own natural genetic resources. Diversity may also be considered to be the amount and distribution of information, which is directly applicable to the total genetic diversity or complexity in a community. This advanced knowledge can be correlated broadly with the success of the application of biochemical and modern molecular methods for elucidation of those interactions in the environment. Through the analysis of the structure of the microbial communities, it is possible to evaluate the alterations and the diversity losses. The anthrosols associated with the pre-Colombian settlements still present nowadays in the Amazonian region are considered examples in how anthropogenic activities may influence and adapt the native populations to tropical harsh environments for human establishment, even without a previous intentionality of anthropic soil formation. Several studies have pointed out the conditions under which the Amazonian Dark Earth or Terra Preta de Índio were constructed, involving botanical, ethnopedological, cultural and archaeological aspects, and the conditions under which ADE has become a model soil for the contemporary small holders living with the benefits derived from the cultivation of ADE for economic purposes. We compared in a first case-study the microbial community richness in soils from Western Amazon associated with deforestation and land use systems and in a second study, the microbial communities of anthrosols with their adjacent non-anthropogenic soils of the same mineralogy. In the first study, molecular characterization of the soil microbial community included determination of the Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) richness of Bacteria, Fungi and Archaea based on intergenic spacer region length polymorphisms rRNA gene by Automated Ribosomal Intergenic Spacer Analysis (ARISA) technique (16S-23S – Bacteria and Archaea and 18S-28S – Fungi). In the second study, 16S rRNA clone libraries of Bacteria and Archaea from the anthrosols and pyrogenic charcoal grouped together regardless of site, and these communities were distinct from those in the adjacent, background soils. Sequencing of taxa unique to particular samples showed that both the anthrosols and the adjacent soils contain organisms that are taxonomically distinct from those found in sequence databases. Most of the sequences obtained were novel and matched those in databases at less than 98% similarity. The strong similarities among the microbial communities present in the both studies, regardless of current land use, suggests that the microbial community composition in these soils is controlled strongly by their historical soil management followed by the current land uses.
Keywords: Amazonia; microbial diversity; slash-and-burn; Amazonian Dark Earth; pyrogenic charcoal

Type of Paper: Article
Title: The Diversity of Bitter Manioc (Manihot Esculenta Crantz) Cultivation in One of the Richest Landscapes of Amazonia
Author: James A. Fraser
Affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9SJ, U.K. E-Mail james.angus.fraser@gmail.com
Abstract: While anthropological studies of bitter manioc cultivation in the Amazon have almost exclusively focused on long-fallow shifting cultivation in marginal areas of low soil fertility, a large proportion of bitter manioc cultivation has taken place in the rich whitewater landscapes of the Central Amazon. On the Middle Madeira River, peasant smallholders practice a form of swidden agriculture on fertile Amazonian Dark Earths (ADE) and floodplain soils, which tends to be characterized by short fallowing, short cropping periods with a predominance of low starch fast yielding “weak” landraces. On infertile Oxisols and Ultisols, bitter manioc agriculture typically consists of shifting cultivation, with longer fallows, longer cropping periods and a predominance of high starch slow yielding “strong” landraces. These different bitter manioc cultivation systems manifest diverging loci of bitter manioc agrobiodiversity, each featuring a predominance of certain genetic traits; selected because they are adaptive to particular soil conditions. These findings are framed by a discussion of the nature of bitter manioc cultivation in the late pre-Columbian period in central Amazonia, drawing on what is known from the historical and archaeological record.
Keywords: Bitter Manioc diversity; Amazonian Dark Earths; weak and strong landraces; swidden cultivation; shifting cultivation; divergent co-evolutionary dynamics; historical ecology

Type of Paper: Article
Title: The Transformation of Environment into Landscape: The Historical Ecology of Monumental Earthwork Construction in the Bolivian Amazon
Author: Clark L. Erickson
Affiliation: Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, 33rd and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6398, USA; E-Mail: cerickso@sas.upenn.edu
Abstract: Although the Neotropics are recognized as a region rich in biological diversity, the origin, evolution, and maintenance of this phenomenon continues to be debated. Historical ecologists and landscape archaeologists point out that the Neotropics have a long, complex human history that may have been a key factor in the creation, shaping, and management of present day biodiversity. The construction of monumental earthworks referred to as ring ditches of the Bolivian Amazon and surrounding regions in late prehistory had considerable impact on the fauna, flora, soils, and topography of forest islands. Patterned landscape features, historical documents, energetics, and historical ecology are used to understand the transformation of forest islands into anthropogenic built environments.
Keywords: historical ecology; landscape archaeology; historical contingency; engineered landscape; forest islands; Bolivia; Amazonia