Centuries of compounding human influence on Amazonian forests

Citation

McMichael CNH, Bush MB, ter Steege H, Piperno DR, Gosling WD, Nascimento MN, Lombardo U, de Souza Coelho L, Leão do Amaral I, de Almeida Matos FD, de Andrade Lima Filho D, Castilho CV, Wittmann F, Guevara-Andino JE & Sanna Freire Silva T (2025) Centuries of compounding human influence on Amazonian forests. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 122 (47), Art. No.: e2514040122. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2514040122

Abstract
Recent evidence suggests that the ecological footprints of pre-Columbian Indigenous peoples in Amazonia persist in modern forests. Ecological impacts resulting from European colonization c. 1550 CE and the Amazonian Rubber Boom c. 1850 to 1920 CE are largely unexplored but could be important additive influences on forest structure and tree species composition. Using environmental niche models, we show the highest probabilities of pre-Columbian and colonial occupation sites, and hence human-induced ecological influences, occurred in forests along rivers. In many areas, the predicted pre-Columbian and colonial distributions overlap spatially with the potential for superimposed ecological influences. Environmental gradients are known to structure Amazonian vegetation composition, but they are also strong predictors of past human influence, both spatially and temporally. Our comparisons of model outputs with relative abundances of Amazonian tree species suggest that pre-Columbian and colonial-period ecological legacies are associated with modern forest composition.

Keywords
Ecological Legacy; Hyperdominance; Indigenous Land use; Colonization; Tropical Forest

Notes
Additional authors: William E. Magnusson, Rafael P. Salomão, Oliver L. Phillips, Juan David Cardenas Revilla, Mariana Victória Irume, Maria Pires Martins, Maria Teresa Fernandez Piedade, José Ferreira Ramos, Nigel C. A. Pitman, Bruno Garcia Luize, Evlyn Márcia Moraes de Leão Novo, Percy Núñez Vargas, Thiago Sanna Freire Silva, Eduardo Martins Venticinque, Angelo Gilberto Manzatto, Neidiane Farias Costa Reis, Katia Regina Casula, Euridice N. Honorio Coronado, Juan Carlos Montero, Jochen Schöngart, Nicolás Castaño Arboleda, Abel Monteagudo Mendoza, Charles Eugene Zartman, Rodolfo Vasquez, Bonifacio Mostacedo, John Terborgh, Layon O. Demarchi, Rafael L. Assis, Marcelo Brilhante de Medeiro, Adriano Costa Quaresma, Marcelo Fragomeni Simon, Ana Andrade, José Luís Camargo, Ted R. Feldpausch, Timothy J. Killeen, William F. Laurance, Susan G. W. Laurance, Lorena Maniguaje Rincón, Emanuelle de Sousa Farias, Henrique Eduardo Mendonça Nascimento, Bruno Barçante Ladvocat Cintra, Tim R. Baker, Yuri Oliveira Feitosa, Hugo F. Mogollón, Alejandro Araujo-Murakami, Roel Brienen, Maria Aparecida Lopes, José Leonardo Lima Magalhães, Helder Lima de Queiroz, James A. Comiskey, Beatriz S. Marimon, Ben Hur Marimon-Junior, Gabriel Damasco, Freddie C. Draper, Roosevelt García-Villacorta, Aline Lopes, Alberto Vicentini, Fernando Cornejo Valverde, Alfonso Alonso, Francisco Dallmeier, Leandro Valle Ferreira, Vitor H. F. Gomes, Daniel P. P. de Aguiar, Fernanda Antunes Carvalho, Rogerio Gribel, Marcelo Petratti Pansonato, Gerardo A. Aymard C., Paul V. A. Fine, Juan Carlos Licona, Boris Eduardo Villa Zegarra, Vincent Antoine Vos, Luzmila Arroyo, Carlos Cerón, Marcos Silveira, Juliana Stropp, Doug Daly, William Milliken, Guido Pardo Molina, Marcos Ríos Paredes, Jos Barlow, Erika Berenguer, Dário Dantas do Amaral, Joice Ferreira, Eliana M. Jimenez, Bente Klitgaard, Maria Cristina Peñuela Mora, Carlos A. Peres, Pablo R. Stevenson, Kyle G. Dexter, Anthony Di Fiore, Isau Huamantupa-Chuquimaco, José Luis Marcelo Pena, Toby Pennington, Luciana de Oliveira Pereira, Juan Fernando Phillips, Gonzalo Rivas-Torres, Patricio von Hildebrand, Janaína Costa Noronha, Edelcilio Marques Barbosa, Flávia Rodrigues Barbosa, Luiz Carlos de Matos Bonates, Rainiellen de Sá Carpandeo, Hilda Paulette Dávila Doza, Alfredo Fuentes, Ricardo Zárate Gómez, Therany Gonzales, George Pepe Gallardo Gonzales, Yadvinder Malhi, Ires Paula de Andrade Miranda, Linder Felipe Mozombite Pinto, Adriana Prieto, Domingos de Jesus Rodrigues, Agustín Rudas, J. Sebastián Tello, César I. A. Vela, Bianca Weiss Albuquerque, Angela Cano, Milena Holmgren, Marcelo Trindade Nascimento, Alexandre A. Oliveira, Maira Roc, Ademir R. Ruschel, Veridiana Vizoni Scudeller, Rodrigo Sierra, Miles R. Silman, Natalino Silva, Milton Tirado, Maria Natalia Umaña, Corine Vriesendorp, Cláudia Baider, Henrik Balslev, Reynaldo Linares-Palomino, Casimiro Mendoza, Italo Mesones, Germaine Alexander Parada, Miguel N. Alexiades, William Farfan-Rios, Karina Garcia-Cabrera, Walter Palacios Cuenca, Susamar Pansini, Daniela Pauletto, Freddy Ramirez Arevalo, Adeilza Felipe Sampaio, Elvis H. Valderrama Sandoval, Luis Valenzuela Gamarra, Marcelo de Jesus Veiga Carim, José Renan da Silva Guimarães, John J. Pipoly III, Fernanda Coelho de Souza, Marcelino Carneiro Guedes, José Julio de Toledo, Wegliane Campelo, Terry W. Henkel, Jean-François Molino, Janaina Barbosa Pedrosa Costa, Ima Célia Guimarães Vieira, Daniel Sabatier, Alvaro Duque, Daniel Zuleta, Thiago Trindade, Eduardo Kazuo Tamanaha, Fernando Ozorio de Almeida, and Kenneth J. Feeley

Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Volume 122, Issue 47

• Published Version