A Worm's Trail: Implementing a collaborative network for the study of Historical and Recent Land Use and Soil Management in Neotropical Rainforests

“以史为鉴，启迪现在，启迪未来”--阿特金斯集团尽管没有文字记载，但亚马逊盆地的前哥伦比亚人发展出了被称为亚马逊“暗土”(ADE)的非凡土壤，用来促进可持续农业。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制度，以便适当管理当前和规划未来的土地利用，是至关重要的。目前的项目将有助于了解土壤动物及其生物多样性如何与土壤肥力、ADE的形成和巨大多样性生物群中的土地利用变化有关。此外，它还将加强“可持续发展教育网络”，并为对亚马逊地区生物多样性和可持续农业感兴趣的巴西研究人员和学生提供能力建设。因此，拟议的项目将建立一个由巴西(和世界)不同地区的多学科、多机构的研究人员团队组成的合作网络，从而巩固英国和巴西之间的联系，特别是加的夫大学和恩布拉帕林业之间的联系。

'Learning from the past to inform the present and inspire the future' - Atkins GroupDespite the absence of written historical records, pre-Columbian people of the Amazon Basin developed remarkable soils referred to as Amazonian 'dark earths' (ADEs), used to promote sustainable agriculture. With increasing global demand for food, energy and carbon, it is crucial to understand and learn from past land use systems in order to appropriately manage the current and plan the future land uses. The current project will contribute to the knowledge of how soil animals and their biodiversity are related with soil fertility, ADE formation and land use changes in a mega-diverse biome. Furthermore, it will strengthen the 'ADE Network', and provide capacity building to Brazilian researchers and students interested in Amazonian biodiversity and sustainable agriculture. The results will promote better understanding of how to sustainably use and manage Amazonian soils, while simultaneously preserving their rich biodiversity.Therefore, the proposed project will establish a collaborative network composed by a multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional team of researchers in different areas of Brazil (and the world), therefore solidifying the connection between the UK and Brazil, in particular between Cardiff University and Embrapa Forestry.