Eighty-four per cent of all Amazonian arboreal plant individuals are useful to humans

Abstract

Plants have been used in Amazonian forests for millennia and some of these plants are disproportionally abundant (hyperdominant). At local scales, people generally use the most abundant plants, which may be abundant as the result of management of indigenous peoples and local communities. However, it is unknown whether plant use is also associated with abundance at larger scales. We used the population sizes of 4,454 arboreal species (trees and palms) estimated from 1946 forest plots and compiled information about uses from 29 Amazonian ethnobotany books and articles published between 1926 and 2013 to investigate the relationship between species usefulness and their population sizes, and how this relationship is influenced by the degree of domestication of arboreal species across Amazonia. We found that half of the arboreal species (2,253) are useful to humans, which represents 84% of the estimated individuals in Amazonian forests. Useful species have mean populations sizes six times larger than non-useful species, and their abundance is related with the probability of usefulness. Incipiently domesticated species are the most abundant. Population size was weakly related to specific uses, but strongly related with the multiplicity of uses. This study highlights the enormous usefulness of Amazonian arboreal species for local peoples. Our findings support the hypothesis that the most abundant plant species have a greater chance to be useful at both local and larger scales, and suggest that although people use the most abundant plants, indigenous people and local communities have contributed to plant abundance through long-term management.

More than 10,000 pre-Columbian earthworks are still hidden throughout Amazonia

“…S2). Although these highlighted species have multiple uses ( 44 ), they have mainly been used for their edible fruits and nuts in Amazonia, with the exception of H. brasiliensis , which has been used intensively for latex production (data S1). Species that are more frequent and abundant in forests with higher probability of earthwork occurrence were probably favored by a combination of interacting past Indigenous management practices and ecological processes ( 6 ).…”

Geographic distribution, conservation, and genomic resources of cacao Theobroma cacao L

“…Considering the complexity of the Amazon basin, there is room for further plant collections and search for new cacao populations and germplasm. Unfortunately, the progressive deforestation of Amazonia is eroding the natural habitat not only of cacao populations but also of many more native plant species with crop and economic potential (Coelho et al., 2021; Neves & Heckenberger, 2019; Schultes, 1979). Thus, more genetic studies are urgently needed to study new cacao populations using next generation high‐throughput sequencing and genotyping.…”

Naturalness Is in the Eye of the Beholder

“…The 90-95% loss of the Indigenous population represents a loss of knowledge and memories about forest landscapes, so we may never know the real proportion of modern forests that were once swiddens, although it is likely to be a respectable proportion (Clement et al, 2015). Likewise, we cannot know which individual trees and palms were planted by humans, but 84% of all large-statured trees and palms in Amazonian forests are useful to humans (Coelho et al, 2021).…”