Persistent effects of pre-Columbian plant domestication on Amazonian forest composition

Abstract

The marks of prehistoric human societies on tropical forests can still be detected today. Levis et al. performed a basin-wide comparison of plant distributions, archaeological sites, and environmental data. Plants domesticated by pre-Columbian peoples are much more likely to be dominant in Amazonian forests than other species. Furthermore, forests close to archaeological sites often have a higher abundance and richness of domesticated species. Thus, modern-day Amazonian tree communities across the basin remain largely structured by historical human use.Science, this issue p. 925The extent to which pre-Columbian societies altered Amazonian landscapes is hotly debated. We performed a basin-wide analysis of pre-Columbian impacts on Amazonian forests by overlaying known archaeological sites in Amazonia with the distributions and abundances of 85 woody species domesticated by pre-Columbian peoples. Domesticated species are five times more likely than nondomesticated species to be hyperdominant. Across the basin, the relative abundance and richness of domesticated species increase in forests on and around archaeological sites. In southwestern and eastern Amazonia, distance to archaeological sites strongly influences the relative abundance and richness of domesticated species. Our analyses indicate that modern tree communities in Amazonia are structured to an important extent by a long history of plant domestication by Amazonian peoples.

Metadata

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Levis, C Costa, FRC Bongers, F Pena-Claros, M Clement, CR Junqueira, AB Neves, EG Tamanaha, EK Figueiredo, FOG Salomao, RP Castilho, CV Magnusson, WE Phillips, OL https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8993-6168 Guevara, JE Sabatier, D Molino, J-F López, DC Mendoza, AM Pitman, NCA Duque, A Vargas, PNN Zartman, CE Vasquez, R Andrade, A Camargo, JL Feldpausch, TR Laurance, SGW Laurance, WF Killeen, TJ Mendonça Nascimento, HE Montero, JC Mostacedo, B Amaral, IL Guimaraes Vieira, IC Brienen, R https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5397-5755 Castellanos, H Terborgh, J De Jesus Veiga Carim, M Da Silva Guimarães, J De Souza Coelho, L De Almeida Matos, F Wittmann, F Mogollón, HF Damasco, G Dávila, N García-Villacorta, R Coronado, ENH Emilio, T De Andrade Lima Filho, D Schietti, J Souza, P Targhetta, N Comiskey, JA Marimon, BS Marimon, B-H Neill, D Alonso, A Arroyo, L Carvalho, FA De Souza, FC Dallmeier, F Pansonato, MP Duivenvoorden, JF Fine, PVA Stevenson, PR Araujo-Murakami, A Aymard C, GA Baraloto, C Do Amaral, D Engel, J Henkel, TW Maas, P Petronelli, P Cardenas Revilla, JD Stropp, J Daly, D Gribel, R Ríos Paredes, M Silveira, M Thomas-Caesar, R Baker, TR Da Silva, NF Ferreira, LV Peres, CA Silman, MR Cerón, C Valverde, FC Di Fiore, A Jimenez, EM Peñuela Mora, MC Toledo, M Barbosa, EM De Matos Bonates, LC Arboleda, NC De Sousa Farias, E Fuentes, A Guillaumet, J-L Jørgensen, PM Malhi, Y De Andrade Miranda, IP Phillips, JF Prieto, A Rudas, A Ruschel, AR Silva, N Von Hildebrand, P Vos, VA Zent, EL Zent, S Cintra, BBL Nascimento, MT Oliveira, AA Ramirez-Angulo, H Ramos, JF Rivas, G Schöngart, J Sierra, R Tirado, M Van der Heijden, G Torre, EV Wang, O Young, KR Baider, C Cano, A Farfan-Rios, W Ferreira, C Hoffman, B Mendoza, C Mesones, I Torres-Lezama, A Medina, MNU Van Andel, TR Villarroel, D Zagt, R Alexiades, MN Balslev, H Garcia-Cabrera, K Gonzales, T Hernandez, L Huamantupa-Chuquimaco, I Manzatto, AG Milliken, W Cuenca, WP Pansini, S Pauletto, D Arevalo, FR Costa Reis, NF Sampaio, AF Urrego Giraldo, LE Valderrama Sandoval, EH Gamarra, LV Vela, CIA Ter Steege, H
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© 2017, American Association for the Advancement of Science. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Science. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy.
Dates:	Published: 3 March 2017 Published (online): 2 March 2017 Accepted: 20 January 2017
Institution:	The University of Leeds
Academic Units:	The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Geography (Leeds) > Ecology & Global Change (Leeds)
Depositing User:	Symplectic Publications
Date Deposited:	10 Apr 2017 10:51
Last Modified:	16 Jul 2020 18:04
Published Version:	https://10.0.4.102/science.aal0157
Status:	Published
Publisher:	American Association for the Advancement of Science
Identification Number:	10.1126/science.aal0157
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:114745