Amazonian exploitation revisited: ecological asymmetry and the policy pendulum
Amazonian exploitation revisited: ecological asymmetry and the policy pendulum
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DOI：
10.1890/070018
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发表时间：
2007-11-01
影响因子：
10.3
通讯作者：
Silman, Miles R.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bush, Mark B.;Silman, Miles R.
哥伦布发现美洲大陆之前的人类对亚马逊河流域生态系统的影响正在被积极讨论。长期以来认为亚马逊河流域只受到人类活动的最小影响的观点受到了挑战，一种将亚马逊河流域视为“人造景观”的新范式正在出现。如果这种干扰直到500年前才成为常态，那么亚马逊生态系统对干扰的生态适应力可能比以前想象的要大得多。或者，如果“人造景观”的标签是言过其实的，那么假设这种复原力的政策可能会造成重大和长期的生态破坏。我们目前的古生态数据表明，一个中间的路径，其中一些地区进行了重大修改，但亚马逊河流域的大部分地区受到的影响最小。邻近主要河道的悬崖和季节性很强的地区似乎是最广泛定居的地方。在远离人类居住的地区，他们对生态系统的影响是非常局部的。因此，我们没有看到任何证据表明，远离河流的大片地区或亚马逊河季节性较弱的地区因人类活动而发生了重大变化。因此，从已知的人类活动地点推断整个亚马逊地区的景观干扰可能会导致对人类影响的不切实际的预测和误导政策。
The influence of pre-Columbian human populations on Amazonian ecosystems is being actively debated. The long-standing view that Amazonia was only minimally impacted by human actions has been challenged, and a new paradigm of Amazonia as a "manufactured landscape" is emerging. If such disturbance was the norm until just 500 years ago, Amazonian ecosystems could be far more ecologically resilient to disturbance than previously supposed. Alternatively, if the "manufactured landscape" label is an overstatement, then policy that assumes such resilience may cause substantial and long-lasting ecological damage. We present paleoecological data suggesting a middle path, in which some areas were heavily modified, but most of Amazonia was minimally impacted. Bluffs adjacent to main river channels and highly seasonal areas appear to have been the most extensively settled locations. Away from areas where humans lived, their influence on ecosystems was very local. Consequently, we see no evidence suggesting that large areas at a distance from rivers or in the less seasonal parts of Amazonia were substantially altered by human activity. Extrapolating from sites of known human occupation to infer Amazon-wide landscape disturbance may therefore potentially lead to unrealistic projections of human impact and misguided policy.