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Levis, Carolina and Costa, Flávia R.C. and Bongers, Frans and Peña-Claros, Marielos and Clement, Charles R. and Junqueira, André B. and Neves, Eduardo G. and Tamanaha, Eduardo K. and Figueiredo, Fernando O.G. and Salomão, Rafael P. and Castilho, Carolina V. and Magnusson, William E. and Phillips, Oliver L. and Guevara, Juan Ernesto and Sabatier, Daniel and Molino, Jean-François and Cárdenas López, Dairon and Monteagudo Mendoza, Abel and Pitman, Nigel C.A. and Duque, Alvaro and Núñez Vargas, Percy and Zartman, Charles Eugene and Vasquez, Rodolfo and Andrade, Ana and Camargo, José Luís and Feldpausch, Ted R. and Laurance, Susan G.W. and Laurance, William F. and Killeen, Timothy J. and Mendonça Nascimento, Henrique Eduardo and Montero, Juan Carlos and Mostacedo, Bonifacio and Leão Amaral, Iêda and van der Heijden, Geertje and Guimarães Vieira, Ima Célia and van der Heijden, Geertje and ter Steege, Hans (2017) Persistent effects of pre-Columbian plant domestication on Amazonian forest composition. Science, 355 (6328). pp. 925-931. ISSN 1095-9203

Abstract

The 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 to be hyperdominant than non-domesticated species. Across the basin the relative abundance and richness of domesticated species increases 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.

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