Amazonian Ecuador

Biocultural Diversity in Ecuador

by Emanuele Serrelli

Pievani T, Serrelli E (2007). Gli strani intrecci della biodiversità. Le Scienze (Italian edition of Scientific American), n. 466, pp. 96-101. ISSN 0036-8083 [http://hdl.handle.net/10281/4451]

Ecuador is one of the richest treasures of biodiversity in the world, with its variety of ecosystems and species. This... more Ecuador is one of the richest treasures of biodiversity in the world, with its variety of ecosystems and species. This is even more surprising if one considers the small extension of its territory. The secret of such evolutionary engine is all in the backbone of mountains running north to south and separating the country in three different ecosystems, with many transition areas in between.Moreover, natural richness goes along with an exuberant linguistic, ethnic, and cultural diversity. Not by chance, scholars adopt more and more often the term "biocultural diversity": causes of biological and cultural diversification are probably intertwined, forming a node of interrelationships. We observe and tell about this in the first mainland stage of "Velisti per caso" in South America, following Darwin's path.

"Tropical Deforestation: Small Farmers and Land Clearing in the Ecuadorian Amazon" by Thomas K. Rudel with Bruce Horowitz

by Philip Fearnside

Fearnside, P.M. 1998. "Tropical Deforestation: Small Farmers and Land Clearing in the Ecuadorian Amazon" by Thomas K. Rudel with Bruce Horowitz. Biodiversity and Conservation 7(2): 272. (book review). Doi: 10.1023/A:1017113324930

2007 Le réveil de L'immateriel: la production onirique du patrimoine des indiens Zápara (Haute Amazonie)

by Anne-Gael Bilhaut

PhD Dissertation, University of Paris X-Nanterre, 2007

2008 Biographie d'un esprit au corps brisé. Les pierres magiques des ancêtres zapara d'Amazonie: des sujets du passé

by Anne-Gael Bilhaut

published in: Journal de la société des américanistes, 2006, 92-1 et 2

Life of a spirit in a broken body. The magic stones of Zapara’s ancestors in Lowland Amazonia : subjects of the past.... more Life of a spirit in a broken body. The magic stones of Zapara’s ancestors in Lowland Amazonia : subjects of the past. The use of magic stones in the Amazon has been studied by many ethnographers. However, the analysis of the intersubjective relations that occur between these stones and their « master » remains succinct. The example of the stones of the Zapara offers an understanding of these relations. The ancestors of the Ecuadorian Zapara (Amazonia) left on the land many stones that, when found by humans, become subjects to be treated as such. Stones of the ancestors with whom they share a history, are passed on from generation to generation, directly or indirectly. This article tells the story of a spirit embodied in a stone whose story has been reconstructed by the Zapara through its description and narrations. Possessed by an ancestor then passed on to his descendants, this « stone subject » then lost its mineral body, which then modified the relation between the stone and its master.

2009 WHEN MUSEUMS ARE DREAMED: SUBJECTIVE RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE PAST IN AN AMAZONIAN COMMUNITY

by Anne-Gael Bilhaut

In: C. Crouch (Ed.), Subjectivity, Creativity, and the Institution: 87-96. Boca Raton (Florida): BrownWalker Press.

The Zápara Indians in the Upper Amazon are on the verge of disappearing from the linguistic map. In this paper, I... more The Zápara Indians in the Upper Amazon are on the verge of disappearing from the linguistic map. In this paper, I argue that the Zápara dreamers reconstruct the collective memory through their subjective dream experiences. I will explore how a few experienced dreamers are able to journey by dream to a “memory house”, where they can record their own memory or knowledge for the next generations, and receive the ancestors’ knowledge. Moreover, when Manari, one of the young leaders, came to the Quai Branly Museum (Paris, France) to discover the Zápara reserve collection, he provided an original example of the reacquisition of knowledge through conserved artefacts. Thanks to those unusual examples, I will show how the Zapara succeed in being recognized as a living and original people, facing new situations. The dream, as a tool for engaging in the return to the past, provides the historical elements that the Indians then re-inject into their present in order to construct new “traditions”.

Huapula Site Archaeobotanical Report I

by Kevin Leonard

Unpublished manuscript on file with Institut Françes des Études Andines, Quito, Ecuador.

Archaeological investigations at a mound complex near Macas, Morona Santiago province, yielded the first charred maize... more Archaeological investigations at a mound complex near Macas, Morona Santiago province, yielded the first charred maize kernels from the Ecuadorian Upper Amazon. The most abundant plant remains at the site were charred guaba seeds (Inga sp.). The finds are described and the role of maize in Amazonian society is evaluated.

Dominance and distribution of tree species in upper Amazonian terra firme forests

by Nigel Pitman

Pitman, N.C.A., J. Terborgh, M.R. Silman, P. Núñez V., D.A. Neill, C.E. Cerón, W.A. Palacios & M. Aulestia 2001. Dominance and distribution of tree species in upper Amazonian terra firme forests. Ecology 82(8): 2101-2117.

Amazonian forests are the largest and most diverse in the tropics, and much of the mystery surrounding their ecology... more Amazonian forests are the largest and most diverse in the tropics, and much of the mystery surrounding their ecology can be traced to attempts to understand them through tiny local inventories. In this paper we bring together a large number of such inventories scattered across immense areas of western Amazonia in order to address simple questions about the distribution and abundance of tropical tree species in lowland terra firme forests there. The goal is to describe patterns of commonness and rarity at local (1 ha), landscape (􏰏104 km2), and regional (􏰈106 km2) scales, and to fuse the results into a more complete picture of how tropical tree communities are structured. We present estimates of landscape-scale densities for 􏰏1400 taxa, based on data from tree plots scattered over large tracts of terra firme forest in eastern Ecuador and southeastern Peru. A database of morphological, ecological, and other traits of 􏰈1000 of these species compiled from the taxonomic literature is then used to explore how species that are common in the inventories differ from species that are rare.
Although most species show landscape-scale densities of 􏰇1 individual/ha, most trees in both forests belong to a small set of ubiquitous common species. These common species combine high frequency with high local abundance, forming predictable oligarchies that dominate several thousand square kilometers of forest at each site.
The common species comprising these oligarchies are a nonrandom subset of the two floras. At both sites a disproportionate number of common species are concentrated in the families Arecaceae, Moraceae, Myristicaceae, and Violaceae, and large-statured tree species are more likely to be common than small ones. Nearly a third of the 150 most common tree species in the Ecuadorean forest are also found among the 150 most common tree species in the Peruvian forest. For the 254 tree species shared by the two data sets, abundance in Ecuador is positively and significantly correlated with abundance 􏰏1400 km away in Peru.
These findings challenge popular depictions of Amazonian vegetation as a small-scale mosaic of unpredictable composition and structure. Instead, they provide additional evidence that tropical tree communities are not qualitatively different from their temperate counterparts, where a few common species concentrated in a few higher taxa can dominate immense areas of forest. We hypothesize that most Amazonian forests are dominated at large scales by oligarchies similar in nature to the ones observed in Ecuador and Peru, and we argue that the patterns are more indicative of regulation of relative abundances by ecological factors than of nonequilibrium chance-based dynamics. The paper concludes with a discussion of the practical applications of predictable oligarchies over large areas of unexplored forest.

Global conservation significance of Ecuador's Yasuní National Park

by Nigel Pitman

Bass, M.S., M. Finer, C.N. Jenkins, H. Kreft, D.F. Cisneros-Heredia, S.F. McCracken, N.C.A. Pitman, P.H. English, K. Swing, G. Villa, A. Di Fiore, C.C. Voigt, and T.H. Kunz. 2010. PLoS ONE 5(1): e8767. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0008767

Background: The threats facing Ecuador’s Yasun ́ı National Park are emblematic of those confronting the greater... more Background: The threats facing Ecuador’s Yasun ́ı National Park are emblematic of those confronting the greater western Amazon, one of the world’s last high-biodiversity wilderness areas. Notably, the country’s second largest untapped oil reserves—called ‘‘ITT’’—lie beneath an intact, remote section of the park. The conservation significance of Yasun ́ı may weigh heavily in upcoming state-level and international decisions, including whether to develop the oil or invest in alternatives.

Methodology/Principal Findings: We conducted the first comprehensive synthesis of biodiversity data for Yasun ́ı. Mapping amphibian, bird, mammal, and plant distributions, we found eastern Ecuador and northern Peru to be the only regions in South America where species richness centers for all four taxonomic groups overlap. This quadruple richness center has only one viable strict protected area (IUCN levels I–IV): Yasun ́ı. The park covers just 14% of the quadruple richness center’s area, whereas active or proposed oil concessions cover 79%. Using field inventory data, we compared Yasun ́ı’s local (alpha) and landscape (gamma) diversity to other sites, in the western Amazon and globally. These analyses further suggest that Yasun ́ı is among the most biodiverse places on Earth, with apparent world richness records for amphibians, reptiles, bats, and trees. Yasun ́ı also protects a considerable number of threatened species and regional endemics.

Conclusions/Significance: Yasun ́ı has outstanding global conservation significance due to its extraordinary biodiversity and potential to sustain this biodiversity in the long term because of its 1) large size and wilderness character, 2) intact large- vertebrate assemblage, 3) IUCN level-II protection status in a region lacking other strict protected areas, and 4) likelihood of maintaining wet, rainforest conditions while anticipated climate change-induced drought intensifies in the eastern Amazon. However, further oil development in Yasun ́ı jeopardizes its conservation values. These findings form the scientific basis for policy recommendations, including stopping any new oil activities and road construction in Yasun ́ı and creating areas off- limits to large-scale development in adjacent northern Peru.

Volume and geographical distribution of ecological research in the Andes and Amazon, 1995–2008

by Nigel Pitman

Pitman, Nigel, Jocelyn Widmer, Clinton N. Jenkins, Gabriela Stocks, Lisa Seales, Franklin Paniagua, and Emilio M. Bruna. 2011. Tropical Conservation Science 4(1): 64–81.

The Andes range and the Amazon basin represent the most diverse biological community on earth and the largest tropical... more The Andes range and the Amazon basin represent the most diverse biological community on earth and the largest tropical forest on earth, respectively, but they are historically understudied by biologists. In this paper we provide the first quantitative description of the volume and geographical distribution of ecological research in these regions. We compiled a dataset of all articles based on the Andes and Amazon regions published in two prominent international tropical ecology journals between 1995 and 2008. During this period, the number of scientific articles based on research in the Amazon was half that based on research in Central America, while the Andes scored among the least-studied of all tropical regions. Brazil was the leading base for Amazonian studies and Ecuador the primary location for Andean studies, but Ecuador led both categories and Brazil came last when research effort was standardized by area. Most Amazonian research took place in three regions—Manaus, southeastern Peru, and eastern Ecuador—with ~31 percent of all papers coming from four field stations in those regions. Andean research focused overwhelmingly on the northern Andes. Research in the Andes range and the Amazon basin remains scattered, patchy, and far below its potential. We propose steps that funding agencies can take to increase research output and reduce geographical bias in the study of South America's richest ecosystems.