Amazonia Through Time: Andean Uplift, Climate Change, Landscape Evolution, and Biodiversity
The Making of Amazonian Diversity
The biodiversity of the Amazon Basin is legendary, but the processes by which it has been generated have been debated. In the late 20th century the prevalent view was that the engine of diversity was repeated contraction and expansion of forest refugia during the past 3 million years or so. Hoorn et al. (p. 927) analyze findings from a diverse range of disciplines, including molecular phylogeny, ecology, sedimentology, structural geology, and palaeontology, to offer an overview of the entire history of this region during the Cenozoic era (66 million years ago). The uplift of the Andes was a pivotal event in the evolution of Amazonian landscapes because it continually altered river drainage patterns, which in turn put a variety of pressures on organisms to adapt to changing conditions in a multiplicity of ways. Hence, the diversity of the modern biota of the Amazon has more ancient origins than previously thought.
Abstract
The Amazonian rainforest is arguably the most species-rich terrestrial ecosystem in the world, yet the timing of the origin and evolutionary causes of this diversity are a matter of debate. We review the geologic and phylogenetic evidence from Amazonia and compare it with uplift records from the Andes. This uplift and its effect on regional climate fundamentally changed the Amazonian landscape by reconfiguring drainage patterns and creating a vast influx of sediments into the basin. On this “Andean” substrate, a region-wide edaphic mosaic developed that became extremely rich in species, particularly in Western Amazonia. We show that Andean uplift was crucial for the evolution of Amazonian landscapes and ecosystems, and that current biodiversity patterns are rooted deep in the pre-Quaternary.
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Science
Volume 330 | Issue 6006
12 November 2010
12 November 2010
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Copyright © 2010, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Published in print: 12 November 2010
Acknowledgments
We thank all colleagues who shared their data; M. F. Tognelli for mammal richness data; and B. P. Kohn, M. Bernet, P. van der Beek, R. T. Pennington, S. B. Kroonenberg, B. Bookhagen, C. Uba, and three anonymous reviewers for constructive comments on the manuscript. Supported by the Osk. Huttunen Foundation, the Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth Fund, and the Helsingin Sanomain Saatio (T.S.) and by the Academy of Sciences of Finland (F.P.W.).
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