Hook a Worm to Catch a Man: Tracking Historical and Recent Human Settlement, Land use & Migration in Neotropical Rainforests using Ecosystem Engineers

——阿特金斯小组对亚马逊盆地前哥伦布时代的人类进行的人类学和考古学研究揭示了复杂的农业实践。尽管缺乏历史书面记录，但这些做法的生物学证据仍然存在于被称为亚马逊“暗土”（ADEs）或“印第安大地”的非凡土壤中，这些土壤是这些古代文明为促进高产和可持续农业而生产的。随着全球对粮食、能源和碳的需求不断增加，了解和借鉴过去的土地利用系统至关重要。我们还可以从这些历史实践对相关生物多样性的影响中学习，以便适当地管理当前和规划未来的土地利用。这种理解对于经济和环境的可持续性，对于满足今世后代的需要和愿望，同时保护他们所依赖的资源基础的生态保真度是必不可少的。这对于土壤及其固有的和多样化的生物有机体尤其重要，因为它们维持植物生产（因此，它们处于人类食物链的基础），并对水质和可得性产生重要影响。此外，土壤是生物多样性的巨大宝库，包括许多无脊椎动物物种，它们提供了许多基本的生态系统服务，尽管这些物种中的大多数仍然是未知的、看不见的和被忽视的。通过促进人类学/考古学、土壤生态学和基因组学之间的跨学科联系，我们将能够提出整合和利用国际知名科学家的研究专长来调查ADEs与相关现存生物多样性的关系，揭示过去和现在对自然环境的人为影响的细节，以及关于巴西大部分地区定居动态的新线索。因此，该项目的目的是促进土壤动物生物多样性的知识及其与土壤肥力和土地利用变化的关系在一个巨大的多样性生物群落（亚马逊）。我们的目标将通过以下方式实现：评估当前的土壤生物多样性组合，以了解土壤生态系统工程师、有机质和养分对这些极肥沃土壤形成的功能和潜在作用；这种新方法将有助于理解ADEs的起源和可持续管理，以及潮湿热带条件下的高度风化和酸性土壤。使用DNA条形码来描述与整个亚马逊盆地过去和最近的定居点相关的生态系统工程师社区的多样性。利用与人类景观驯化密切相关的游隼物种的基因组学来反映与亚马逊印第安人迁移相关的新热带雨林之间的人类交流和流动。这将通过整合最先进的方法和最先进的“工具”来实现，科学家合作网络将为研究目标带来包括无脊椎动物形态学、分子遗传学和计算分析，并结合已有的和新的生态、人类学和环境元数据。此外，拟议的项目将建立一个涉及巴西不同领域的多学科，多机构研究人员团队的合作网络，因此，巩固欧洲共同体和巴西之间的联系，特别是卡迪夫大学和Embrapa之间的联系。

'Learning from the past to inform the present and inspire the future' - Atkins GroupThe anthropologic and archaeological study of pre-Columbian people of the Amazon Basin has revealed sophisticated agricultural practices. Notwithstanding the absence of historical written records, the biological evidence of these practices remains in the remarkable soils referred to as Amazonian 'dark earths' (ADEs), or "Terra Preta do Indio", produced by these ancient civilisations to promote highly productive and sustainable agriculture. With increasing global demand for food, energy and carbon, it is crucial to understand and learn from past land use systems. We can also learn from the influence of these historical practices on the associated biodiversity in order to appropriately manage the current and plan the future land uses. This understanding is essential for both economic and environmental sustainability, and to provide for the needs and aspirations of current and future generations, while simultaneously conserving the ecological fidelity of the resource base on which they depend. This is particularly important with respect to soils and their intrinsic and diverse living organisms, because they sustain plant production (thus, they are at the base of the human food production chain), and have important consequences for water quality and availability. Furthermore, soils are a vast storehouse for biodiversity including many invertebrate species that contribute a number of essential ecosystem services, although most of these species remain mostly unknown, unseen and disregarded. By promoting the interdisciplinary connection between anthropology/archaeology, soil ecology and genomics, we will be able propose to integrate and harness the research expertise of internationally renowned scientists to investigate both the relationship of ADEs to the associated extant biodiversity, reveal details of past and current anthropogenic impact on the natural surroundings, as well as new clues regarding settlement dynamics over a large part of Brazil. Therefore, this project's intention is to contribute to the knowledge of soil animal biodiversity and its relationship with soil fertility and land use changes in a mega-diverse biome (Amazonia). Our objectives will be accomplished by:1. Assessing the current soil biodiversity assemblages to gain knowledge about the functioning and potential role of soil ecosystem engineers, organic matter and nutrients to the formation of these extremely fertile soils; this novel approach will aid in understanding the origin and sustainable management of ADEs as well as highly weathered and acid soils under humid tropical conditions.2. Using DNA barcoding to describe the diversity of the ecosystem engineer community associated with past and recent settlements throughout the Amazonian Basin. 3. Using genomics of a peregrine species closely related with human landscape domestication to mirror the human exchanges and flow among the Neotropical rainforest associated with the migration of Amazonian Indians.This will be achieved by integrating the state-of-the-art methods in The state-of-the-art 'tools' that the collaborating network of scientists will bring to bear on the study objectives include invertebrate morphology, molecular genetics, and computational analyses with incorporation of pre-existent and new ecological, anthropological and environmental metadata. Furthermore, the proposed project will establish a collaborative network involving a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional team of researchers in different areas of Brazil and, therefore, solidifying the connection between the European Community and Brazil, in particular between Cardiff University and Embrapa.