Amazon Ecological History

Question 1

What explains increased Amazononian/African forests?

Answer 1

CO2 fertilization effect and nutrient deposition

Question 2

What are Heckenbergers two hypothesis of the Amazon’s make-up?

Answer 2

Existsed either as a pristine forest or a cultural parkland

Question 3

What is Heckenbergers main conclusion on the Amazon?

Answer 3

Complex interplay of ecological, historical, and policitcal conditions despite modern denialism of the Amazon as a mosaic

Question 4

Why is it unlikely humans distributed homogenously across the basin?

Answer 4

Human decisions on where to settle, grow, crops, or hunt are not random.

Question 5

Example of the homogeneity of the Amazon

Answer 5

Flooded French Guiana savannas, Marajo Island, settlements/managed lands along the upper Xingu.

Question 6

Where do humans mostly concentrate?

Answer 6

Farm zones around riverine bluffs

Question 7

What is pre-columbian agriculture informed by?

Answer 7

Amazonian Dark Earth (terra preta)

Question 8

What is an example of ineffective estimates of Amazonian inhabitation?

Answer 8

A study on 12 Black Earth locations ranging from 0.5-120ha in Santarem-Arapinus region with one of hte most prominent PC cultures, estimating hundreds across the study area of a million hectares of forest, or abnout 99.9% of the land non TP (ADE only a small amounf of the Amazonian soil)

Question 9

What is an example of monodominance without humans?

Answer 9

Mauritia palms close association with settlement areas, but also a clear indicator of wetlands, thus presence across rivers not necessarily human-induced.

Question 10

What is another example of monodominance without humans?

Answer 10

Natural behaviour of agoutis to aggregate

Question 11

What can skew the idea the Amazon is man-made?

Answer 11

Taxonomic uncertainty and bias towards anthropogenic species.

Question 12

What is the general claim of humans on biodiversity?

Answer 12

Disturebance net increases alpha and beta diversity

Question 13

Why are short-term implications on biodiversity misleading?

Answer 13

Species richness a simplistic metric, short-term increases often followed by loss of forest dependent species

Question 14

How has Heckenberger viewed relationship between ecology and human-use?

Answer 14

Discovery of large, settled communities and dense regional populations suggest much longer and complex history of human use, and by definition sustainable resource use.

Question 15

Why is heckenbergers human/land use assumption wrong?

Answer 15

Cannot draw conclusions without extent/integrity of forests surrounding a settlement/area.

Question 16

What is the importance of the human/land-use implications?

Answer 16

Notion amazonians did not exploit forest resource at odds with overhunting and Pleistocene extinctions of South America

Question 17

How is it likely Indigenous People impacted the forests?

Answer 17

Slash and burn farming losing system nutrients, sometimes sustainable sometimes not.

Question 18

Where do sustainable indigenous practice assumptions come from?

Answer 18

ADE fertilization, forest enrichment, subsitence hunting dwarfeed by degradation, overhunting, and fragmentation of modern exctractivism

Question 19

What are implications for rainforest recovery?

Answer 19

Extinction of restricted-range species confusing current BD crises necessary for millenia recovery requires.