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的前哥伦比亚人进行了人类学和考古学研究，揭示了复杂的农业实践。尽管没有历史文字记录，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“Terra Preta do Indio”的非凡土壤中，由这些古老文明生产出来，以促进高生产力和可持续的农业。随着全球对粮食、能源和碳的需求不断增加，理解和借鉴过去的土地使用制度至关重要。我们还可以借鉴这些历史做法对相关生物多样性的影响，以便适当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以及满足当代人和子孙后代的需要和愿望，同时保护他们所依赖的资源基础的生态保真度都是至关重要的。对于土壤及其固有的和多样的生物体来说，这一点尤其重要，因为它们维持植物生产(因此，它们处于人类食物生产链的基础)，并对水的质量和可获得性产生重要影响。此外，土壤是生物多样性的巨大仓库，包括许多无脊椎动物物种，这些物种贡献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大多不为人所知、看不见和被忽视。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，我们将能够提议整合和利用国际知名科学家的研究专长，以调查ADE与相关的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点动态的新线索。因此，该项目的目的是促进了解土壤动物生物多样性及其与土壤肥力和土地利用变化之间的关系，以期在一个巨大多样的生物群(亚马逊)中实现这一目标。我们的目标将通过：1.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、有机质和养分在这些极其肥沃的土壤形成中的作用和潜在作用；这种新的方法将有助于理解ADE的来源和可持续管理，以及潮湿热带条件下的高度风化和酸性土壤。使用DNA条形码描述与整个亚马孙盆地过去和最近的定居点相关的生态系统工程师群落的多样性。3.使用与人类景观驯化密切相关的游牧物种的基因组学来反映与亚马逊印第安人迁徙有关的新热带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来实现，科学家合作网络将带来关于研究目标的最新方法，包括无脊椎动物形态、分子遗传学和计算分析，并纳入先前存在的和新的生态、人类学和环境元数据。此外，拟议的项目将建立一个合作网络，涉及巴西不同地区的多学科、多机构的研究人员团队，从而巩固欧洲共同体与巴西之间的联系，特别是加的夫大学与巴西国家经济和社会事务部之间的联系。

'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.